


Love of Fire and Water

by Yemoya



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Minor Aang/Katara, Minor Mai/Zuko, Minor Sokka/Suki, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Zuko (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yemoya/pseuds/Yemoya
Summary: After Zuko leaves Iroh at the beginning of Book Two, he has to steal to get by. Never did he think he could make a friend like that. But the waterbender Kilara accepts him as he is and even seems to like him. They both understand each other instantly and feel how their future changes. They continue to meet through chance and shape each other's paths and futures.But how can the banished prince of the Fire Nation be friends with an Earth Kingdom girl? While the war goes on, how can their friendship survive? And will it become something more?(Or: Since Katara marries Aang, and it isn't really clear, who could Zuko's wife be?)
Relationships: Zuko (Avatar)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. A Thief in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!  
> So, you should know I'm not a native English speaker, so there will be some mistakes in this chapter. I hope not, but... yeah.  
> I am crossposting this from fanfiction.net, because I noticed that ao3 will let me publish some fan art, too. And I really love the format of ao3. This fic already has 29 chapters posted on ff.net, and I plan on writing at least 75.
> 
> I'm a huge Zutara fan, and I was so disappointed that these two weren't endgame, but I kept imagining them to be together as adults, but then The Legend of Korra came. However, it was never confirmed that Mai became Zuko's wife, and while I like her, I don't think she should marry Zuko. So, I tried to invent the perfect woman for Zuko (who is not a perfect character) and write down their love story.
> 
> So, this note was very long. The ones for the next chapters won't be so long, I promise!
> 
> And on to the first chapter!
> 
> More notes are at the end.

**_Kilara_ **

In the nights of the full moon, I’ve always had trouble sleeping. I’ve never liked to close my curtains or the shutters, so the moonlight could shine brightly and untrammelled into my room. But that’s not what bothered me now.

  
Inside of me, between my rips and my navel, it felt like something tug on my organs. This pull was powerful and made me restless. I just felt so awake underneath the full moon.

  
When I was younger, I used to sneak out of the house and go to the nearest creek. Then I would stand in the water, barefoot, looking up at the moon, and feel its power running through my veins. My mother would join me to admire the moon.

  
After a while then we would start bending. I loved the way the water flowed between the movements of our arms, how I could shape it to everything I wanted, to ice it and make it liquid again. It always felt like dancing to me, how we would twirl in the creek, making the water following us. It was always my favourite waterbending lesson.

  
But that was before. That was when she was still alive.

  
Now, I would just toss and turn in bed, waiting for the moon to set, so I could finally get some sleep. Sometimes I would read scrolls or books, trying to keep myself distracted.

  
Tonight, was a different night, though. The evening before had been unnerving, and even without a full moon I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep. I had a lot to think about. And to pout about and to complain about.

  
But to be fair, my uncle had given me time. I didn't need to make a decision right now and I also didn't need to marry anyone until I would turn sixteen. Which was in seven months.

  
I snuggled deeper under my blanket and sighed.

  
Then I felt suddenly another source of water on the grounds. A person, who made his or her way to the kitchen house.

  
I got up, put on some shoes and a dressing gown, before I made my way to the person I could feel.

  
This person definitely didn't belong here.

* * *

**_Zuko_ **

It was ridiculously easy to find the kitchen of this mansion. I just had to follow my nose. Relief went through me when I noticed the kitchen to be in a small house attached to the main house. Definitely better than last time when the kitchen had been in the basement.

  
I made it there quickly and silently. With a small dagger I managed to open the door without leaving a sign of the breaking.

  
Those rich Earth Kingdom idiots should rather invest their money into their safety than into their parties and looks.

  
I pulled out my sack and started looking for bread first. When I had what I wanted I searched for dried meat or fish. I grinned to myself when I found both. The faint smell of tea leaves came to my nose, and I could nearly hear my Uncle scolding me for stealing food. Frowning I moved to another part of the kitchen, looking for fruits and vegetables, when a shadow cast over the floor.

  
I dropped the food sack, quickly pulled out my swords and settled into a fighting stance, looking at the person at the door.

  
In front of me stood a girl in a white expensive looking dressing gown. I could make out flowery patterns made of lace on her collar, which covered her chest to her collarbones. Her brown hair was tied in a bun, but some strands danced around her cheeks and neck. Her skin looked pale in the moonlight, but I could still see that it was much darker than mine. Her eyes were sparkling blue. She was smaller than me, but seemed to be my age, maybe even older. Even with this to know, I couldn’t help but wonder, what the Avatar’s waterbender did here and if he was maybe nearby. Only when she moved, my mind registered that this girl was not the Avatar’s waterbender. Just some other Water Tribe girl.  
I frowned in confusion, wondering what a Water Tribe girl was doing in such fine clothing in such a fine mansion in the Earth Kingdom.

  
But then again, if she knew who I was, she’d probably be thinking the same.

  
The metal of my swords reflected some light, and she took a hesitant step back, looking slightly frightened.

  
Good. She should just turn around and leave me be. I could still make it out of here with the food.

* * *

**_Kilara_ **

Goosebumps covered my skin and my whole body stilled when I saw him. It was just my luck that I had to run into a demonic spirit. Would it eat me? Or simply kill me?

  
But I noticed his face to be blue, so I wondered if he was a water spirit, and maybe because of me being half Water Tribe and a waterbender he would leave me be.

  
The spirit was definitely a him. There was nothing soft or curvy about his appearance. Even though his clothes were a bit loose there was no mistaking his muscular body.

  
Wait a second. He wore clothes. Loose and dirty clothes.

  
I narrowed my eyes at his swords, figuring that he was just a guy hiding behind a water spirit mask.

  
“What are you doing here?”, I asked, hoping my voice would sound strong and confident, demanding.

  
The man didn't move at first and clearly was not going to answer, but then he picked up a full sack and held only one of his swords in my direction.

  
Slowly he made his way towards me.

  
“Answer my question!” I said in my best order voice.

  
He stopped in his tracks for a moment, but then continued walking towards me.

  
I took several steps back, for I certainly didn't want to feel his sword in my stomach.

  
“You’re a thief, aren’t you?” I squared my shoulders the best I could and felt for a water source. I would just encase him in ice while distracting him with my questions. “Feeling good because of it?” I added a provoking tone to my voice. Behind him in the kitchen was a big water tank. I concentrated on the water, having it already in my grasp without doing anything else than clenching my hand into a fist. “Clearly you think that you are better than the people you steal from. That you deserve whatever you’re stealing. You feel smart, don’t you?” I backed away again, since he had made a fast move towards me, swinging his sword in a deadly manner. I swallowed. No, I would end this. I would stop him. There is nothing honourable about stealing, and I would not let him get away like this. Not when he was trying to steal from my family. So I quickly pulled a big amount of water towards me, wanting to splash him from behind.

  
But I hadn’t known that he would be so quick. He dropped the sack of food and dodged the water, so that it nearly hit me. But my grip on the water was too tight, and I quickly sent a wave and a whip towards him, nearly at the same time, moving into the stances with ease from years of practice.

  
The masked thief truly was a good fighter. He used his swords to cut through my water whips and dodged the waves I sent towards him, always a small bit too fast for me. He didn’t stand still for one second and moved through our fight with an ease and grace that only belonged to experienced warriors. But I didn’t give up, sending a dozen water whips in his direction when I noticed what he was doing. He was trying to tire me.

  
Narrowing my eyes I chased him down to the creek, without touching him one time with water. But there was enough water now nearby, and he wouldn’t be fast enough to dodge a wave as big as this.

  
I raised my arms quickly, the water rising immediately due to the full moon. I created several tentacles and waves, attacking him from every side, moving my arms fast and powerfully.

  
There was just too much water, and I quickly had him in an orb. I put some of it down to reveal his head, and froze the water.

  
He wiggled frantically, articulating quiet sounds of anger while he was trying to get out of my small iceberg.

  
Cautiously I approached him, still waiting if he had something up his sleeve to get him out of the ice. But there was nothing.

  
Suddenly he stilled, looking in my direction as I came closer.

  
I didn’t feel very smug or victorious since the fight had gone on longer than I had anticipated. I was a pretty good waterbender, nearly a master, and it was the full moon, dammit! I should have won within a blink of an eye.

  
I felt angry about him being able to fight so good, but I was also curious. Why did such a highly skilled warrior need to steal food?

  
My feet touched the ice, and I reached out to his mask, wanting to see what was underneath.

  
That was when he finally moved, flinching and trying to move his head away. Huh, so he didn't want me to take the mask off his face.

  
But I still did it. It was not easy, since it was bound tightly behind his head, and he was still wiggling his head, so that I couldn't get a good grip on the knot, but I managed to take his mask.

  
Underneath was someone who I would have never expected.

  
It was a boy. A teenage boy around my age.

  
Suddenly I felt very impressed by his fighting.

  
Short black hair stood from his head in every direction, and his pale skin looked nearly as white as the moon herself.

  
The left side of his face was badly scarred, damaged to an angry reddish purple colour and a texture which looked like lizard skin with some unevenness.

  
I figured it was a burn scar. I had seen enough of them since the day I had discovered I had healing abilities, so I knew just fine how they looked like. Spirits, that must have hurt! There were no eyelashes around his eye, nor an eyebrow, and even his ear was damaged.

  
Both his eyes were narrowed and an angry scowl covered his face.

  
I crossed my arms underneath my chest, still holding the blue mask. A frown tugged at my mouth. “Why were you stealing food?” I asked.

  
His eyes even narrowed more, but then he simply looked away, not bothering for an answer.

  
Now it was my turn to scowl. “Answer when I ask you something!”

  
His head snapped back at me, his right eye suddenly more open, although his left stayed narrow, as his eyebrow moved into a frown. “Don’t speak to me like that!”, he growled, his voice raspy and rather deep for his age.

  
A slight shiver ran down my spine which I chose to ignore. “And why shouldn’t I, thief?”

  
He didn’t answer again, only scowled more if that was even possible. “Let me go,” he finally said, his voice full of anger.

  
I smirked at that. Did he really expect me to let him go? Never. I would deliver him to my uncle, who would decide what would be about to happen to him.

  
“Let me go!”, he snapped again. “Or else I will hurt you really badly.”

  
I suppressed the urge to back away. “First you would need to get out of the ice,” I stated in a voice more confident than I felt like.

  
“I can get out”, he simply said. “I’d just appreciate it not to show you.”

  
My frown deepened, but instead of pondering on his words I stemmed my hands on my hips and leaned in even a bit closer. “I’ll decide if I let you go when you tell me why you were stealing food.”

* * *

**_Zuko_ **

Dammit, that was just my luck to get encased in ice again. I really didn’t like that, but it wasn’t as if I could just firebend me out of here. Well, I could, but it wouldn’t be very smart. I was a thief now and I didn’t want to give her any other reason to contempt me.

  
I hadn’t had a lot of contact with Earth Kingdom people before, but sometimes I would overhear people talking. They were angry with the Fire Nation, especially firebenders. That’s exactly why I used my swords.

  
But unless they developed a will of their own, they wouldn’t be able to help me escape.

  
Water Tribe girls must really love to encase their opponents in ice.

  
I felt so angry that it was really difficult not to heat my body. This stupid waterbender, who was for whatever reason in the Earth Kingdom, had been able to take me down! It just wasn’t fair to me. It showed me only more what a failure I was.

  
I would never be able to return home. I would never see the gardens of the palace again nor would I become Fire Lord one day.

  
My anger was so omnipresent that I nearly couldn’t understand what she said.

  
“What do you mean? You wouldn’t let me go, so don’t pretend you’d do!” I snarled.

  
Her eyes narrowed a bit, she then rolled them and looked to the side. “Okay, fine, I wouldn’t let you go. But my uncle might. It depends on your reason for stealing food.”

  
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Well, what do you think is the reason for people stealing food? It’s clearly not for fun!”

  
The girl frowned and moved her lower lip to the side while she looked me up and down. Suddenly, it felt like there was something alive inside the ice. A presence which surrounded me and felt almost like water. But the ice didn’t liquefy one bit.

  
“Soooo…” the girl said slowly, “…you don’t have any food of your own?”

  
“No.” I hoped she would just finish this nonsense and let me go. I had no desire to stay in the ice for longer. What if I would catch a cold?

  
Her facial expression changed suddenly. Instead of looking angry and demanding, she looked sad. I knew this look all too well. Pity. How much I hated that!

  
As suddenly as it had appeared on her face, it disappeared again. A look of confusion crossed her features instead. “You… How could such a highly skilled warrior not have any money to buy food?” she asked, sounding suspicious.

  
“I just don’t. I don’t have a job, so I don’t have money!” My eyes narrowed angrily at her. This was so humiliating! I didn’t only have to steal; I had to explain myself and my actions to a teenage waterbender!

  
“And why don’t you have a job?”, she asked in an innocent sounding voice.

  
She probably thought that I just didn’t want to work and rather use my skills to steal to make myself a comfortable life. Well, that wasn’t that wrong.

  
But I was also a fugitive, and I couldn’t afford to stay in one place for several days so that I could work to earn us some money. Only one day more in one place could be our death sentence.

  
“I… I can’t stay in one place for too long. That’s not quite helpful for getting a job”, I answered nonchalantly.

  
“And why can’t you stay in one place for too long?”, the girl asked, almost sounding bored.

  
I frowned angrily. “That’s none of your business!” I snapped.

  
She came closer, getting all in my space and narrowing her eyes. Her finger poked in the ice, where my chest was. “But you are my business! You broke into my family’s house, tried to steal our food, and I prevented you from actually doing so! So, until I don’t know why you’re here or why you can’t stay in one place, you are so my business!”

  
I had moved my head a bit away from her since I hated it when people got near me. But I had still been able to catch some of her scent. Fresh like rain and something that smelled like a flower, but also reminded me of tea. I couldn’t help but notice that it was a nice scent.

  
“I’m getting more and more tempted to just free me myself!” I hissed, hoping to frighten her somehow.

  
“I’d like to see you try.” She sounded overconfident, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  
Oh dragons! How could I get out of here without having to reveal my firebending?!

  
“There’s no way you could get out of there unless you were a waterbender yourself, which you are clearly not. I have trained with Earthbenders and I know that they cannot get out of ice themselves.” She again started to poke into the ice and narrowed her eyes a bit. “And you cannot escape with dual dao swords!” The girl suddenly took a step away, gasping, her eyes wide with shock. What the magma? “You’re from the Fire Nation” she whispered.

  
I’ve never been good at lying or denying the truth, nor have I ever been a good actor, so I couldn’t pretend to be shocked at her words. In the back oy my mind I wondered how she had come to that conclusion.

  
But it just had been too many prejudices, too much hatred, too much contempt and fear. I’ve had enough.

  
“So?!” I snapped. “Am I therefore a bad person who deserves nothing than hatred?!” It was out now, and I didn’t care anymore, hot air leaving my nose, and the ice around me melted away from my body heat.

  
I kept the heat up, wanting to steam myself dry and getting warm again.

  
The girl gasped, taking one more step back. “You’re a…” Suddenly she cocked her head to the side, looking confused and curious. “Why didn’t you fight with firebending?”

  
My frown deepened, but it was more one of surprise than anger now. Why did she care?

  
“Does that matter?” I brought my swords together and sheathed them.

  
“I was just being curious.” She shrugged and hugged herself around the waist, shivering slightly. “Are you… a soldier?” she asked, biting her lip.

  
Wow. Me being a firebender in the Earth Kingdom had never brought up this curiosity in a person.

  
“No”, I said lowly.

  
“Then… what are you doing here? I mean, in the Earth Kingdom. Well, the free, not occupied Earth Kingdom.”

  
“I… That was not intentional. Not totally.” I rubbed my neck, not feeling comfortable under her searching and judging gaze. I then noticed that she wasn’t in a fighting stance anymore. How stupid. She couldn’t be sure that I was not going to attack her again. How utterly stupid.

  
I quickly charged forward, one flame in my left fist, sending it to her right side, and while she concentrated on this, I shot another fire ball right in front of her feet, causing a little explosion and knocking her to the ground.

  
She hissed out of pain and anger while she was rubbing her back. Dragons, why was she rubbing her back in the middle of a fight?

  
“Stop that!”, I growled.

  
She looked up at me in confusion. “What?”

  
“You’re getting distracted too easily,” I told her. “Just because I wasn’t attacking you before doesn’t mean that you can let your guard down.”

  
Her surprised look probably matched mine. Why the magma was I instructing her?

  
“And now that! I just attacked you and you are not moving, only rubbing your stupid back!” I snarled angrily.

  
She frowned at me again. “Yes, you did attack me, but you weren’t going to hurt me. You could have easily done so if you wanted to, but you only sent me on my butt.”

  
I was clearly taken aback at her words. Well, she was right, but she couldn’t have known that!

  
Quickly I rushed towards her, grabbing her wrists and holding them to the ground, pressing my body to hers, so that she couldn’t move nor fight.

  
“You cannot know that for sure!” I growled, perceiving her scent again and fighting to ignore a shiver that ran down my spine. “You are completely defenceless now! You could have stopped me doing this, but your confidence and pride seem to threaten your sense! Are you always that careless with your life and safety?”

  
She narrowed her eyes again, looking angry to my relief. “I’m not too confident, nor too proud. And you might be Fire Nation and a firebender, but you also seem to be running away from something and hiding in the Earth Kingdom. You are a starving teenager and not a ruthless killer. You might want me to be afraid of you, and maybe I am. A little bit, since I don’t know you, and now that I think of it, you truly could be a ruthless killer despite your age. You could even be a rapist since you are pinning me to the ground. Like a rapist!” she shot back, having blabbered a little in the middle of her monologue.

  
I drew back, as if I had burnt myself and sat down a few feet away from her. Bending my legs, I let my arms drop to my knees. “I’m not a rapist!” I snapped. “And I certainly would never rape anyone! That is a disgusting und most dishonourable thing to do! And I have never killed anybody!”

  
As the girl sat up, I couldn’t help but notice a smug expression on her face. She mirrored me, bending her legs, and laying her arms on her knees. “Then I don’t have anything to fear, do I?”

  
I blinked and didn’t know what to say.

  
We stared at each other for a while, maybe seconds or even minutes. I didn’t know what lingering here would now gain me, since I wouldn’t try to steal the food again, but I also couldn’t leave because that felt too much like giving up.

  
While I stared at her, I became curious myself.

  
A waterbender in the Earth Kingdom, who didn’t hate me simply for what I am. We had fought, but for another reason, and now there was no hostility left.

  
I noticed that her eyes weren’t all blue. They had a tint of green, nearly looking turquoise. That reminded me of my favourite beach on Ember Island with white sand, where the ocean had exactly that colour.

  
“What about a deal?” the girl asked, looking curious.

  
Quickly I put my guard back up and narrowed my eyes at her. “What deal?”

  
“You answer my questions without being rude or lying. And I let you have some food, I even help you gather it, and I can cook you some meals, that you can take with you or eat now.” She held her chin slightly higher, challenging me with that suggestion.

  
Answering her questions without lying? Magma, no. I wouldn’t tell her anything. She already knew too much.

  
But my stomach didn’t agree with me at all. It gave out a loud growl, clenching and annoying me. Life would be so much easier without having to eat.

  
But no, I could still get food elsewhere. I wouldn’t get a warm meal, that was for sure, and I didn’t know how to cook, so it also wouldn’t taste that good, but I still couldn’t accept.

  
I continued to glare at her when my stomach protested again. Urrgghhh!!!!!! I was so fed up with being hungry and not eating something proper and stealing for it was a dishonourable thing to do and sleeping in the dirt and urgh! Just everything! I even missed Uncle’s tea.

  
I was proud, always had been and always will be. But I was not a complete idiot. And I was human. So, I needed and wanted to eat.

  
Swallowing my pride, I inclined my head a bit. “I accept, if you answer my questions as well.”

  
She frowned in confusion. “What could you possibly want to ask me?”

  
I cocked my head to the side. “Like what does a waterbender do in the Earth Kingdom?”

  
“Oh. Well, okay. We have a deal.” With that she stood, motioning for me to follow her.

  
I was still cautious, since it all could be a trap, but I followed her to the kitchen. She grabbed up my sack and put it onto the countertop. “Would you mind making some light?” she asked while going through the stuff I had wanted to steal.

  
I looked around, recognising a few lamps around the walls and one giant lamp in the middle of the kitchen. I exhaled deeply and concentrated on the lamps, trying to focus. I inhaled and exhaled again, then I shot out several little fire blasts lighting every lamp, but not burning anything else.

  
Pleased with my work I allowed myself to smile a little bit. Precise fire shots had never been easy for me.

  
“So… I’ll just start with the questions,” the girl said. “What’s your name?”

  
Zuko. I really almost said that.

  
“Erm… You can call me Lee,” I said, rubbing my neck with my left hand. I walked to where she had dropped my mask, and took it into my hands, examining it for scratches. Suddenly I noticed that I was being rude for not wanting to know her name. “Erm, w-what’s your name?”

  
She was busy going through pans and pots in the cupboard. Finally, she rose to her feet with a pot, and put it onto the stove. “You can call me La.”

  
I frowned. That was her name?

  
Well, it fit, since it was also the ocean spirit’s name, but I didn’t know that water people named their children after their spirits. Fire people certainly didn’t name their children after the Great Dragons, for it were sacred names.

  
Uncle had given me lessons on the Water Tribe culture and spirits while we had been floating on that damn piece of wood, that dared to be called a raft. First, I had rejected his attempts to get me to listen, but he had explained to me why he had defended the moon spirit, and why I should not ignore it. After all, we had only had the moon and the ocean out there, and since we didn’t die, but managed to find shore, Uncle had been very smug. He believed that his prayers and belief had brought us to safety, not my navigation skills. I had learned a lot on my ship, since I wanted to know everything about… well, everything. I didn’t like to rely on people and had worked out our course myself (with a little help from Lieutenant Jee sometimes). I had checked on the engines and the ovens, even the food. I hadn’t cared about what the cook made of the food, but I had cared about me and my crew getting enough proteins and vitamins. Once, I even had convinced the cook to make special diet food for my uncle, but that hadn’t done anything to his stomach. I had suspected him to hide cookies or cakes in his room.

  
La looked over her shoulder at me, and raised her eyebrows in a sarcastic manner, which meant that La was not her real name. So, she had decided to not tell me her name, since she had noticed that I had been lying about mine.

  
I tried not to look guilty. “So… er, you live here?” I changed the subject.

  
“Yes. For now. It is my uncle’s house. My mother is gone, and my father is off studying… well, something in the Fire Nation. Probably history.”

  
My eyebrows shot up. “How is he doing that?”

  
La filled a pot with some small light brown things I had never seen before. “Talking to people in the Fire Nation? Reading Fire Nation books?”

  
“So, he currently is in the Fire Nation?” I pressed.

  
“Yes, he is. Now it’s my turn. Who are you running from?” She poured milk into the pot and stirred the inside with a cooking spoon.

  
O dragon. She really got down to business. “My sister,” I simply said.

  
La shot me a quick look. “Why would you run from her?”

  
I flinched a bit, not knowing how to say the next things. “I was set a mission by my father. But I didn’t manage to accomplish it and now he…” Wanted me imprisoned, stripped of any rank and name. He took my birth right from me and humiliated me. Not that I didn’t deserve it. The Avatar had already been mine, but I hadn’t planned for bad weather or anything else unpleasant. So, it was my own fault that he’d got away. “Well, I have been disinherited and my sister has been sent after me. She is to bring me back so that I…” will be imprisoned. “…can face my punishment.”

  
“Punishment? That sounds a bit too grave. Are you sure your own father wants to do that to you?”

  
I nearly dropped my jar to the floor. “What? You’ve never been punished by yours?”

  
“No. Not really.” Her mouth twisted in thought and she added, “Well, he can get angry and would even yell at me, but I don’t remember being punished for anything in my whole life.”

  
Anger and envy rose quickly inside of me, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Azula. Loved and cherished daughters, who would never be hurt by their fathers.

  
“Then again, my father is not really one for punishment. When I did something bad, he simply told me why that was bad, and how I could do it better, or why I shouldn’t do it again. And when I listened to him, he would buy me some honeybuns or sugarcakes.”

  
I shuddered at the thought of those. They were a common treat in the Earth Kingdom and Uncle loved them. Almost three years ago when my ship had first landed on Earth Kingdom territory, Uncle had pulled me with him, looking excited (I thought he had heard or seen something important about the Avatar’s whereabouts), and introduced me to a sweets shop. I had never seen such a thing, and the amount of sugar in there had been frightening. That day I had eaten Earth Kingdom sweets for the first and last time.

  
La stopped stirring the inside of the pot, and went to cut a moon peach, which I really liked. Although I only enjoyed moon peaches when the flesh was hard and when they tasted more sour than sweet.

  
“Altogether I’d say that my father is just a pacifist.”

  
I stared at La for a few seconds, not knowing what to make of this statement, when I sighed. Wow, we couldn’t be more different.

  
“You enjoy talking about him, don’t you?” I asked, trying to sound gentle, while I kept looking at her.

  
“Oh, yes.” For some reason she sounded sad saying that. “You don’t enjoy talking about yours, do you?”

  
“No, I don’t,” I said quietly, averting my gaze when she turned to look at me.

  
“Then, what about your mother? Does she want you to face your punishment, too?” La asked hesitantly.

  
I frowned, fighting the memories of happier days, when I had felt whole. When my family had still been whole, and everyone had had their place.

  
Not even then had I had a close relationship to my sister, for she had loved to embarrass, humiliate, and insult me in the best way she could. But at that age her ideas hadn’t been grave, and sometimes we even had fun playing. I had accepted that she always wanted to be the best, and let her be it, but that hadn’t been enough for her. She had to be the best and I had to be a weak worm.

  
Father had never been loving or caring towards me, not even towards Azula, but he hadn’t been so frightening either.

  
And Mother… She had been the source of all my happiness. She had made me laugh, had comforted me when I had felt weak, and had made me feel more confident, too. She had encouraged me that if I kept trying, I could manage everything.

  
“I don’t know. She is… not around,” I answered honestly.

  
La glanced at me, frowning. “What happened to her?” She added the moon peach to the pot, along with a spoon of something brown and some seeds.

  
I swallowed, moving towards the window and staring out at the full moon. “She… disappeared. I was ten.”

  
La blinked at me, stunned. “Just like that? Without saying goodbye?”

  
“No. She did come to me that night. She said that everything she had done, she had done to protect me. And that I should never forget who I am. I think that somehow my father made her leave. A lot happened in that night, and because of that my father suddenly… had a higher rank. But I…” I dwelled on that for quite some time, not noticing La finishing my meal, or that she kept the silence between us. I’ve never told that anyone. Not even Uncle knew what I thought about that night. Maybe I just needed to get that out of my head, to talk about it. Uncle always said that keeping things locked up didn’t help and often only made it worse.

  
After a while I felt a hand on my arm, and I noticed that it had been there for a while now. I looked up to see La standing close to me, a gentle expression on her face. She looked nice like that. Friendly and pretty.

  
“I’m sorry for your loss. She surely loved you a lot, just like a mother should.” La drew back her hand, and that spot on my arm suddenly felt cold and lonely.

  
I frowned at my arm, noticing that this girl had woken up some of my teenager hormones.

  
My gaze went back to her, as she looked at the moon, too. “That is something we have in common. My mother died. Fire Nation soldiers.”

  
I gasped and stepped back a bit. That was so wrong. My nation was supposed to bring wealth and progress to the Earth Kingdom. I was not so naïve to think that war went on without a loss of lives, but I had never imagined things to be so grave. Nearly every Earth Kingdom and certainly also Southern Water Tribe person had lost at least one family member in the war.

  
“Okay, so why do you not hate me? Everyone who is not Fire Nation seems to hate the Fire Nation. You even lost someone to this war. I wanted to steal your food and when you found out that I’m from the Fire Nation, you should have… you shouldn’t be so…” Oh no. I hated it when I was at a loss of words.

  
“What? I shouldn’t be so what?” La raised her eyebrows and looked up at me with those turquoise eyes. I noticed that she had pitch black eyelashes though she had brown hair.

  
“Nice?” I tried. “Don’t you see where I’m getting at?”

  
“Yes, I do. And honestly, a few months ago I might have taken my anger out on you”, she admitted, her eyes cast down, and her hands folded. “My mother… Well, I was really angry and desperate. I needed someone to be responsible for her death, and it was all too easy to accept the hatred for the Fire Nation, since everyone is doing so, but my dad… He told me that not everyone from the Fire Nation is bad, and that many people there even don’t want the war, for it only takes their beloved ones. My dad has been to the Fire Nation quite often, and he has friends there. A few months ago, we went there with him, and it was okay. There were things I couldn’t stand, and I became furious about some things, but I’ve seen that my father is right. There was a lot of propaganda over there, and the children are already fed with lies. For example, that the genocide on the Air Nomads was necessary to protect the Fire Nation, and that the Fire Lords are all great and good.” She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself again. “But who am I to tell you about that? Clearly you have heard all these lies your whole life.”

  
I swallowed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yes, I have.” My voice nearly hadn’t any sound and I coughed a few times.

  
“Well… are you still hungry? I made you something extraordinarily delicious.” La forced a smile on her face and rushed back to the stove. I was glad that she had changed the subject. She put large spoons of a light brown porridge in a bowl, and I had trouble to keep my face from grimacing. That didn’t look delicious at all.

  
Oh, I would give anything for some fried meat and fire flakes. Or fried potato plantains. Or the dragon soup.

  
Concentrating on keeping a friendly face, I took the bowl from her and the chopsticks she handed me. La gestured to some stools around a high table, and we sat down there facing each other.

  
“Thank you,” I said and inclined my head slightly. Then I took a bite from the porridge with my chopsticks. And… was surprised to find it spicy and sweet as well.

  
I licked my lips and decided that I liked that porridge. The texture wasn’t slimy at all, more like the inside of warm and fresh bread. The whole porridge tasted a bit like almonds, and the cooked peaches made it sweet and sour.

  
“That’s the only thing I can cook,” La suddenly said. “Tu Ling, a friend of my father’s showed it to me when we were visiting her in the Fire Nation. It actually is a breakfast meal, but it will be light in two hours, so… Well, I hope you like it.”

  
I nodded and kept eating. And to be honest, I was so hungry that I would have eaten almost everything.

  
La smiled at me and put her hands on the table.

  
Suddenly I felt a little uncomfortable because she was looking at me, and I tried to avert my gaze.

  
“So, Lee… Do you have a family member that doesn’t want you to face punishment, or who is still around and cares about you? Someone who could help you in your current situation?”

  
“Yes. Well, no.” I frowned, wondering if Uncle still cared about me, for I had left him. Was he angry with me about that? He had said that he saw me like his own son, but look at what my real father had done to me. “I travelled with my Uncle,” I finally said. “But we parted ways a little more than a week ago.”

  
“Oh. But you like him? And trust him?”

  
I sighed, now looking at her. “Yes, I do. He can be annoying with his obsession over tea or his proverbs and talking love and peace the whole time.” I looked down at my meal again, and smiled, when something else about Uncle came to my mind. “I also hate it when he’s flirting with women. That happens rather often.”

  
La chuckled softly and I found that I liked the sound of it.

  
“He is also obsessed with pai sho. He plays it every day and keeps his lotus tile with him the whole time. Maybe he thinks it is a lucky charm. Once, he thought he had lost it, and he changed our whole travelling route, just so that we came to a port city, and Uncle could find a new lotus tile. He didn’t find one, though. But a whole lot of other garbage.”

  
La raised her eyebrows in amused anticipation, and I wondered why I told her all this stuff.

  
“Decoration and music instruments, parchment with flowers on it, a kite, new clothes of course and a really awful looking hat,” I continued.

  
Again La chuckled and I saw a glint in her eyes. “He seems like a funny and nice man,” she finally said.

  
“He is. I can never laugh at his jokes, but most people think they are great. And he’s always been nice to me. The last years weren’t easy, and I was…” A slight heat crept up my neck at what I was about to say. “…difficult. I was rude and angry all the time. But my Uncle just bore it, for he knew that I needed someone to be there.”

  
“Well, you still can be rude,” La replied in a mocking voice, taking a bit of the seriousness from the situation.

  
I just shot her an annoyed gaze and she chuckled again.

  
“But why did you part ways?” she then asked.

  
I nearly choked on my next bite. “Because I wanted it.”

  
“And now you regret it?”

  
I looked at her, feeling surprised that she had known what I felt. “Yes. This life might not go like I want it to, but it’s been better with him.”

  
“I’m sure you’ll meet again, and then you can travel together again. By the way, do you have any plans for your further travel?”

  
I merely shook my head.

  
“If you go south east, you will come through a valley with vast orchards and far more fruits than you can eat. Of course, they belong to someone, but I’m sure you’ll find a way.” She smirked at me, and I was suddenly surprised again.

  
“Now you think stealing is okay?”

“No, of course it’s not. But distributing goods is important, and when people who have less help themselves to distribute the goods fairly, I’m totally okay with that.”

  
She actually managed to get a chuckle out of me, which surprised me a lot.

  
“But now, tell me what you are doing here? You belong in the Water Tribe, not here between rice fields and deserts.”

  
La shrugged at that. “I don’t think that there really is a place I belong. I can see any place as home, as long as my father, brother, aunt or uncle are with me. I’ve never been to a Water Tribe. I was born in Gaoling and lived on Kyoshi and in Makapu Village for some years. After my mother’s death we moved here.”

  
I frowned. “How come that you’ve been born here? Why were your parents not still with the Water Tribe?”

  
“My mother is from the Northern Water Tribe. She was a bender but couldn’t use her power to defend her home and the people she loved. She was only taught how to heal with waterbending. The Northern Tribe is really old fashioned, when it comes to gender roles. My mother knew that she could never be happy there. So, she left, and went to travel the world. She healed a lot of victims of the war here in the Earth Kingdom and taught herself how to fight with waterbending. She met some waterbender tribe in a big swamp, which was willing to teach her. Once, she healed a wound of my father’s from a Fire Nation raid, and the rest is history.”

  
“So, your father is from the Earth Kingdom?”

  
La nodded. “Well, his father is. But his mother is from the Fire Nation.”

  
My eyes were probably as large as saucers while I stared at La.

  
A small smile tugged at her lips. “He is from the colonies. My grandmother’s family cast her out because she fell in love with an Earth Kingdom man. But he cared for her, and they got married. My father told me that it wasn’t easy for his father as well. To find himself suddenly falling in love with an ashmonster.”

  
My jaw tightened at that word. I’ve never heard that insult, but I certainly didn’t like it. But I swallowed my anger and carefully kept my voice neutral. “So, you are practically from three nations,” I stated.

  
“Actually, my mother even had Air Nomad ancestors,” La said quietly.

  
“What?” I shouted, nearly spitting out my food.

  
La smirked. “The Air Nomads got their name for a reason, you know. My mother’s great-grandmother travelled the world within a small group of Air Nomads and fell in love with a man from the Northern Water Tribe. She stayed with him, and they married. My mother’s grandmother was even an airbender. After the genocide, my great-grandmother was maybe the last airbender, except for the Avatar of course. But none of her children became an airbender, too. My great-grandmother died in a young age and the water healers suspected the imbalance of the world to be the cause of it,” La said softly, her eyes fixed on the floor.

  
Wow, that was some ancestry. And the most different one from my own that I could have imagined. So many marriages because of love, not because of profits or advantages.

People from all over the world accepting each other, despite their different elements. I had a difficult time processing all of that.

  
“I’m sorry for…,” I began, but now I didn’t know how to continue. “…for what my nation did. It was not right.”

  
La showed me a kind smile. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to do with that. It is the people on top who decide, and we can’t do anything about it.”

  
Maybe she couldn’t. But I could.

  
My father might want me imprisoned, but I was still the rightful heir to the throne of the sun. If he accepted me, I would become Fire Lord one day, and then no one could stop me from making things right. Or righter, since I didn’t believe the Fire Nation generals would accept a truce. They were so taken by the war, that they even sacrificed our soldiers and our people. The world was like a board game to them, but I have seen the truth in my father’s war room. And now the truth shouted in my face, the whole time.

Every day.

  
I knew what was right, but I also knew my place. And everything inside of me ached to be at home. I so badly wanted to be where fire lilies would grow, where turtle ducks swam in the ponds and creeks, and where the sun was so hot it felt as if it would burn you.

  
I silently finished my meal, while La kept staring at me. She probably wanted to know where I got my scar from but didn’t find the courage to ask. I tried to ignore her insistent stare.

  
When I was finished, she got up, and collected food that wouldn’t go off quickly. She asked me what I liked and didn’t like.

  
“Wow, you are picky!” she laughed.

  
I shrugged.

  
“Your father… you said, he received a higher rank. Is he an important person in the military?”

  
I stiffened and averted my gaze again. “Yes, you could say it like that,” I muttered.

  
“Are you nobles?”

  
Damn, did she figure out who I was?

  
La pulled dried hippobeef out of a cupboard and folded paper around it. “I’m just asking because you… give yourself like that. You stand and sit upright, and the way you articulate is also proper to Fire Nation nobles.”

  
I frowned. “Just because I have a Fire Nation accent, I have to be noble?”

  
La shook her head. “No, not at all. But I was taught the linguistic differences of every people and their ranks by my father,” she replied proudly.

  
Then he had certainly done a good job. But the problem was that there was no way denying it now. She knew if I’d lie.

  
Somehow, she had guessed all my feelings correctly, and there was no point lying to intelligent eyes like that. Not cruel intelligent like my sister’s, but curious, friendly intelligent eyes. She seemed to be that kind of person who liked to learn just for knowledge’s sake, not for knowledge about your enemy’s weak points.

  
I decided not to say anything about being noble or not. “Is your father a simple researcher and explorer, or is he also a professor?” I asked.

  
La stiffened a bit, and I knew that I had been right. “He’s also a professor. He used to teach at the University of Gaoling, but now he’s in Ba Sing Se.”

  
My eyes widened. “Isn’t that far away from here?”

  
“Yeah, it is. You have to travel several weeks,” she said sadly.

  
Well, our families might be different in the way they were thinking, but we both lost our mothers, were with our uncles, and had fathers who weren’t there.

  
“But you’ll go back to Ba Sing Se with him when he’ll return, won’t you?” I wanted to know.

  
“No, I won’t. My father says the city isn’t as perfect as it seems, and that I couldn’t bear the injustices there. I wouldn’t fit in. That’s why he never wanted me to go there with him.”

  
I frowned and clenched my hands to fists. “That is not fair! Even if what he says is right, you are not a child anymore. You’d know what to do and how to behave! I mean, you have a right to be with him. He’s your father!” I growled angrily but knew that I overreacted because of my own situation.

  
La looked surprised by my outburst and smiled then. “Thank you. You are right, I think I could take it, but I know that he is right himself. He wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true. I’m sad that I don’t see him as often as I would like to.” She let a dry laugh escape her lips. “Actually, I am furious!” She stood up to her full height, her eyes glinted, and her hands curled to fists. “I mean, he gets to be out there! He can go anywhere he wants to, and studying and meeting different people, and that’s what I want to do, too! But my uncle thinks the best for a girl is to get married and not to study!” Now she rolled her eyes and sighed, her body relaxing a bit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled like that.”

  
“No, it’s okay. I understand that. I wouldn’t want my uncle to decide for me who to marry, either,” I said.

  
La smirked sarcastically. “Yeah, because that is actually the same. You know your uncle wouldn’t do that!”

  
“Probably. But if I were in the Fire Nation, I also couldn’t decide who I wanted to be with. Well, not freely. It all would depend on my father’s approval and he is really hard to please. He probably would only accept someone for me who is exactly like my sister,” I said darkly.

  
“Eeewww! I have a brother, and I would certainly vomit the moment I had to marry someone like him.” La shuddered for emphasis, and I smiled a bit. “That’s why my courtiers are down to five now. Hao and Shang were a bit too much like my brother.”

  
Suddenly I got what she was saying. “So, wait, you already have to decide now?”

  
“Yes. My uncle has invited some possible husbands for me over now for weeks. He thinks I wouldn’t get what he’s doing, but I know that he wants me to be married when I’ll reach the age of sixteen.”

  
“You don’t want to marry at all?”

  
She shook her head. “Not one of them. And not in seven months. I want to be older, and I don’t want to be a woman who stays at home, running the household, and bearing one child after the other. I want to study, and to travel the world like my father,” she added silently.

  
I felt something like pity for her, although it made me feel bad, too. As if I would feel her desperation.

  
She forced a smile on her face and tugged some strand of hair behind her ears. “But who am I to complain? My life is not bad. I have people who love me, a roof on top of my head, and I am never starving. There are even servants.”

  
I was thinking about the years after my mother had disappeared, and how I had clung to my uncle. “Sometimes that is not enough to be truly happy,” I said hoarsely.

  
“Self-realisation, I know. What is yours?” she asked innocently, and I gasped slightly.

  
I couldn’t tell her that!

  
“I… want to be what… my father is,” I answered carefully. “I have been trained to be like him, to do what he does. But with him thinking of me as a failure I might never be able to fulfil my destiny.” I looked down, wishing I had more hair that would cover my face. My fists clenched again, and I grew angry about all the things I revealed here.

  
“So, you want to have his rank in the military? You want to make war?” La asked, sounding shocked, and looked at me with eyes wide open, in which I could see hurt.

  
“No,” I quickly said. “I don’t want to do the exact same things he does. It’s just… with his rank I could work on making things better. Keeping soldiers home, not sending them off to war.”

  
“Wow. You father must be something like the right hand of the Fire Lord, if he can decide on those matters,” La said, sounding impressed and disgusted at the same time.

  
“Well, military officers of the Fire Nation can actually do as they please with their soldiers. The only rule is to use the soldiers to gain more land in the Earth Kingdom. Only when an order from above is received, the officers have to obey. And even then, they only care about results, since it also is the only thing the Fire Lord cares about.” Again, I was thinking about my childhood. How unfair it had seemed that Azula didn’t put any effort into anything, but still made everything right. But I tried hard, I made an effort all the time, but Father didn’t care how much I strained myself. In the end I wasn’t as good as Azula, and that was what mattered to him.

  
“Have you met him?” La asked quietly, while she put prepared meals into my bag.

  
“Yes, I have. I’ve been at his coronation, and I had been there when my father got promoted by him.” Hm, I’d just described the exact same event in two different ways.

  
“Oh. How is he?” She looked up at me, but I had enough now.

  
I leaned against the countertop and folded my arms. “Why do you want to know?” I snarled.

  
“I was just curious, that’s all,” La defended herself and I kind of felt bad for being rude again. “People say he’s a monster, but none of them have actually met him. You have.”

  
I sighed. “I cannot really say much about that. He looks regal and tall and scary. There was a wall of fire in front of his throne in the throne room, which made him look inhuman. But I didn’t see anything that made him look like a monster. He also didn’t act that way. Everything bad he does he has to do because of the war. That doesn’t make it okay, but I don’t think he’s a monster.”

  
La narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah? Then banishing his son was also something necessary because of the war?” Her voice had a sarcastic tone to it.

  
I flinched badly and stiffened like a board. Oh Dragons! Did she know… How did…

  
“Huh?” she pressed.

  
“He was weak,” I said in a hoarse voice. “He wanted to do what was right, but that is not required in a war. The Fire Lord needs a much stronger heir. Someone who can make sacrifices and doesn’t want to save everyone.”

  
“How can you say something like that?” she whispered. “If he truly is like that, then the world needs him to be Fire Lord!”

  
My eyes widened at her words in shock. Would she have spoken them in the Fire Nation she might have been sent to a prison straight away!

  
But I quickly regained my composure and narrowed my eyes on her. “He can’t do anything! Look what his believes have done for him! Losing his honour and throne, his birth right, traveling for nearly three years to find that damned Avatar, and now he is declared a traitor! He can never be Fire Lord, and no one needs him! He is a disgrace on the royal bloodline! He is a fool, a weak and pathetic fool, and you are one, too, for wanting him on the throne!” I spit out, clenching my fists and trying to hold back tears. There. I just said out loud what I had come to recognise. It had all been for nothing. My whole life had been for nothing. I would always be a fugitive and live like a peasant or beggar.

  
“I thought…” La sighed and gave out a dry chuckle. “Wow. Maybe you were right. Maybe I shouldn’t have helped you, for you seem to be exactly like this Fire Nation scum that murdered my mother five months ago on Kyoshi!” she shouted angrily at me and I stiffened.

  
I had been on Kyoshi five months ago. I had set the village on fire to get the Avatar to face me. Did her mother die because of the fire? Had she been burnt, or buried alive in a house that had burnt? I knew that my men couldn’t have killed her, for they had the strict order to not kill anyone!

  
I couldn’t be responsible! No, I just couldn’t! I’ve never killed anyone, not even caused the death of someone, but if La’s mother had died because of me…

  
Clear images of how Azula or my father would react to this shot through my head. They would just shrug, and not care at all. One Water Tribe woman was worthless dirt to them, and it didn’t matter if she died or lived.

  
Oh, you’re always so dramatic, Zuzu, a voice drawled in my head, suspiciously sounding like Azula. So, what if she died because of you? She was in the wrong place, and should have cleared your way, and not stayed in one of those houses. So, it was her own fault.

  
But no, I couldn’t rationalise this.

  
Not when I was thinking about Lu Ten, Mother and Uncle. They were good people, I knew that. And they would not shrug the responsibility for someone’s death off.

  
I knew that Uncle carried a heavy responsibility for the Siege of Ba Sing Se and all the people who had died in there.

  
But what had their kindness done for them? Lu Ten and Mother were dead, and Uncle was stripped of his birth right and branded a traitor.

  
So, if I wanted to achieve something, to regain my status and rank, did I have to be like Father and Azula? Did I have to be ruthless and cold? Not letting anything get to me, but only focus on victory and destruction?

  
I wasn’t like them, never had been, but now that I realised what my obsession on victory had done, I found that I had it in me. I could be like Father and Azula. I only knew that I didn’t want to.

  
Not when I’d hurt people like La, kind and nice, innocent people, on the way.

  
But maybe I did have to. Was that the only way to regain what I had lost? By sacrificing innocent people?

  
My breath and heartbeat quickened, and I felt dizzy in my head. I had to get out of here!

  
That was simply too much for me now. I could think more about that when I’d be alone again, but not under her insistent and angry stare.

  
I took a deep breath to stay calm and neutral. “Well, then… I guess you’ll feel better when Fire Nation scum like me doesn’t bother you anymore,” I assumed in a raspy voice.  
Dragons, how on lava could I hide my feelings from this turquoise gaze?

  
La swallowed hardly and looked away. “Maybe.”

  
I frowned at the nearly physical pain I could feel in my heart. It was sad, that I had finally found someone who didn’t hate me for what I was, who even seemed to sympathise with the real me, and I still kept screwing this up.

  
So, I nodded slowly, stood up, and gathered my mask. I chose to approach the door on the other side of the big table in the middle of the kitchen. I didn’t need to come near La again.

  
“Wait!” she suddenly shouted.

  
I turned towards her, trying to kill the flicker of hope in my chest.

  
She led out a deep breath. “Your food. I didn’t pack you these things so that I can put them back now.” She held my bag out to me, and I approached her, feeling surprised.

  
She eyed me warily, and stood an arm’s length away from my bag, but it was still a friendly gesture. After all, she could have decided that I wasn’t worth her food at all.

  
I reached out to take my bag and slung it across my shoulder.

  
La was truly remarkable. Now that she was actually angry with me because of how I was she still wanted to help. I was most stunned by that.

  
So, I placed my right hand flat over my left fist and bowed to her out of my hip, inclining my head, too. “Thank you for your kindness. I don’t deserve it.”

  
As I raised my head, I saw that her mouth stood slightly open. She shook her head in bewilderment. “Don’t do that. We had a deal.”

  
Yeah, I remembered that. But still, I wasn’t used to people keeping their part of a deal.

  
“I wasn’t only thanking you for the food. But for the talk as well,” I said sincerely.

  
La blinked, and then she surprised me, too. She placed her palm upwards on her other hand which was a fist and bowed to me. A Fire Nation bow to show respect. “It was my pleasure.”

  
We stared at each other and La licked her lips and looked away. “I wish… With more time I might understand you better,” she said.

  
I frowned. “I don’t think you would really like to.”

  
She smiled and shook her head. “I wish you good luck with finding your uncle and staying away from your sister.”

  
“Thank you. I hope you won’t have to marry someone you don’t love. Take your ancestors as role models. And I hope you’ll study at a university and travel the world.” I meant every word of what I said.

  
“Thank you,” she whispered and took a step towards me. “I also hope that your destiny will come true and that you’ll like it. But never lose sight of what is right. You are not a bad person, and I wish that you’ll open up to the nice person who is inside you. Friendliness and compassion are no weaknesses. I hope you’ll understand that, and that your father will accept you back.”

  
Now I was the one staring at her in wonder. How did she know that I had been pondering about this the whole time? That I badly needed to hear this to make a final decision?  
However, I would keep her words close, and remember them every time I would be tempted to forget my destiny.

  
I wished I could smile, and simply say thank you, maybe even hug her, but her words had made my mind go blank.

  
Eventually, I pulled myself together and nodded. I took a good look at her, trying to memorise her face and keeping her scent in mind. Then I turned around and walked out of the door. I knew she was looking at me, but I couldn’t find the courage to look back. So, I kept walking.


	2. An Unexpected Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shortly after "Lee" has left, Fire Nation soldiers stand in front of Kilara's house. They are looking for two royal fugitives, and Kilara learns who her conversation partner last night really was, which sets a whole chain of events into motion...

**_Kilara_ **

The last night’s events didn’t leave me. And I doubted they ever would. Fortunately no one had heard us fight or talk yesterday night, so everything was as it always had been. 

Only I, I was different. 

“Tell me again, how should I not be offended by you saying you don’t consider Hao and Shang for marriage, because they remind you of me?” Nanuk, my elder brother (by five minutes only) asked while we were having breakfast.

My aunt and uncle raised their eyebrows questioningly, too. 

I rolled my eyes. Did I really have to explain that? “You’re my brother, Nanuk! If someone reminds me of you, I cannot see myself having romantic feelings for them. That would be as if I’d develop romantic feelings for you!” 

Nanuk flinched at that and made retching sounds. A servant who stood next to me nearly let the tray she carried fall down as she looked at Nanuk. 

I giggled softly, and Uncle cleared his throat to remind us of our manners. 

While living with Mum and Dad, we never had to learn such things. We were a normal family, in which we talked openly, and never held back anything because of manners, but because of respect.

“So, what about Wang? He’s pretty cool, and I’d like to have him as my brother in law.”

I pretended to think about that while I was chewing on a rice ball. “Yeah, Wang is an awesome earthbender, and a prodigy, and so strong, and even intelligent, and he can actually talk about something else than him being so special,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes again.

“Kira,” Uncle said warningly, while my aunt chuckled.

“Give her time,” she said gently and placed a hand on my uncle’s arm. “She wasn’t raised in this society, and she is a strong willed and stubborn girl with spirit. If she doesn’t decide correctly due to your pressure she might end up killing her husband.” She said that in dead-serious tone.

Nanuk and I looked at each other, then at Uncle. He sighed and patted his wife’s hand. “You’re right, my love. As always. And we don’t want to have a murderer in the family.” He now looked at me, slightly smirking. “Least of all I want to take the blame for that because I pressed you into a marriage with a man you couldn’t stand.”

“Yeah, and because of her frustration about killing her husband, she would blame you, too and kill you, too. Then she would kill herself,” Nanuk explained, apparently reading my future out of his tea pot.

I rolled my eyes. “Could you please stop talking about me becoming a murderer?”

Nanuk only grinned at me, and I frowned, crossing my arms under my chest.

Uncle sighed. “I’m just saying that I understand that you need time, but the good men will also soon be taken. We all just want you to be happy.”

Good men. Dammit, he only meant men with money, no one really good. “But maybe I don’t want one of those ‘good men’,” I growled lowly. “What if I find my happiness with a peasant? A koalasheep owner from the Fire Nation?”

“What are koalasheep?” Aunt asked.

Nanuk inhaled sharply, and Uncle put down his tea cup with a _thonk_ sound. “Enough of this! I already am generous by letting you decide! I even give you time, but you are just a childish and stubborn brat!”

My jaw tightened and my fingers clenched around my chopsticks. “Well, if I’m so childish, then maybe I’m not ready for marriage yet!”

“Don’t you twist my words like that!”

“Uuurrgghh!!!” I let my back fall against my rest and crossed my arms again.

Then I suddenly thought about what Lee had said. He had got it that my biggest dream was not to marry, but to study. And I could bring my family honour with that as well.

“Uncle, I…” I began, but then there was a loud knock at the door, and a servant rushed in.

“Sir! There are people out there! They wish to see you and your family right now! It is urgent!” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

Nanuk and I looked at each other excitingly. Well, that sounded interesting!

“Who dares interrupt my family’s breakfast so abruptly?!” Uncle growled, standing up.

“Sir, please notice that I would have let them wait if it weren’t for who they are,” the servant said fearfully.

Uncle frowned and left the room.

My aunt, Nanuk and I couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. We all ran down the hallway and the stairs until we could see from the windows just who was standing outside.

Slowly we crept up to the door, where Uncle stood, seemingly pulling himself together.

I swallowed and wondered if they were here because of Lee. Did they find out that I had helped him? Had he been caught? Or did he maybe betray me?

As Uncle opened the door, the sight was rather terrifying.

Two men were sitting on giant komodo rhinos, and almost twenty soldiers were standing behind them, each of them wearing the skull-like mask that made the Fire Nation soldiers even more appalling.

The men on the komodo rhinos did not wear these masks, and both descended their animals and came to our door.

“What do you want?” Uncle asked, his voice sounding hostile.

The men climbed our stairs and bowed to Uncle for greeting. Uncle bowed back.

I hugged myself around the middle and tried to look innocent.

They put their helmets down, and I was mildly surprised to see the man on the left having dark skin like mine. I had thought that the people from the Fire Nation were all pale. Which was weird, considering they got their power from the sun. But Lee had been pale, though.

My mother had been from a tribe in the North Pole, where most people had dark skin. Nanuk’s and my skin was both lighter, because of Dad’s light skin tone. But Nanuk had the same skin colour everywhere, whereas my skin sometimes seemed not to have decided if it wanted to be dark or light, so I had some patches on my stomach, back and thighs.

The darker skinned Fire Nation soldier hadn't any facial hair except for his sideburns. His colleague had a bushy moustache. “We are here by order of Princess Azula,” the man on the right with the moustache said. “We were sent to search everywhere for the traitors and fugitives General Iroh of the Fire Nation and Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation.”

Just as their names rolled off his tongue, the man on the left with the sideburns opened a roll of parchment and held it out to Uncle.

I leaned forward to have a better look on the wanted poster and nearly gasped out loud.

General Iroh had a round and kind looking face with a trimmed chin beard and a topknot as it was common in the Fire Nation. His eyes were painted in a dark amber tone and his hair in grey.

Prince Zuko looked as if he had a shaved head, for I only noticed the ponytail as I looked closer again a few seconds later. Although his hair looked completely different, I recognised him immediately.

There was no mistaking the light golden eyes, his oval-shaped head with the strong jaw and high cheekbones. I would also have recognised him without it, but it was there and nearly sprang into my face. Prince Zuko’s face’s left side was scarred from a burn. On the paper it simply looked like colour, red and nearly purple, but I had seen that texture with my own eyes, just a few hours ago.

Oh Earth!

Lee was Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation!

Somehow I managed to keep a calm and slightly worried expression on my face while I was freaking out on the inside.

Uncle looked mildly surprised and raised his eyebrows. “Traitors? I didn’t have knowledge of that.”

The man with the moustache nodded. “Both betrayed the Fire Nation during the Siege of the Northern Water Tribe. They helped in defeating the Fire Nation Navy, and Prince Zuko is accused of Admiral Zhao’s death.”

Now I couldn’t keep an expression of calm, but looked shocked. Lee, I mean, Prince Zuko had said that he had never killed a person. And I had believed him.

I couldn’t imagine him killing someone. He was just a teenager; he was as old as I was! Furthermore, he hadn’t seemed like a person who would kill.

Our conversation from last night came to my mind, and I tried to remember everything he had said. Everything he had said could have been the truth. There was no obvious lie, except for his name.

And when he had talked about the prince, he had been talking about himself.

As I came to recognise this, I felt a sudden pain inside of me. It hurt that he was thinking about himself so lowly and disappointedly.

“We have the strict order to search every household for the traitors,” the man added and Uncle nodded immediately.

“Of course. Feel free to look everywhere in the house and on the grounds. If they are indeed hiding here, I wouldn’t want them to stay here.”

The Fire Nation officers flinched and looked at one another. The left one with the wanted poster cleared his throat and said: “Princess Azula wants to see the master of the household in which the traitors are hiding. Hypothetically… If they will be caught on the road, there won’t be any household, nor master… But if we’ll find them here, Princess Azula would want to see you, Aiguo Huang.”

Uncle stiffened, but nodded. “Of course. What master would I be if I didn’t have any knowledge of two fugitives hiding in my house?”

Sideburns nodded. “Exactly what the princess would say.”

Uncle raised his eyebrows. “Well, commence! No one is hindering your search!”

Aunt Chunhua, Nanuk and I were sent to the library in which we would wait until the soldiers would search there.

Nanuk and Aunt were chatting excitingly to each other, talking about the Fire Nation soldiers and traitors, while I was thinking about Prince Zuko and last night.

Understandably, I had issues understanding that Lee was Prince Zuko. But it made sense. He had said that his sister was searching for him and that his father wanted to punish him for something. Apparently, the betrayal in the Northern Water Tribe. Moreover, he’d said he had been traveling with his uncle who would be General Iroh. He had looked nice on the wanted poster, but I couldn’t imagine the fierce Dragon of the West to love tea, proverbs and pai sho.

But I also hadn’t expected the Prince of the Fire Nation to be an unsure and distrusting boy. I shivered slightly at the thought that I had met the son of the Fire Lord. I had had a rather big mouth about him last night with saying that the world needed him to be Fire Lord, but I hadn’t really meant it. I just had been angry at him and angry at the Fire Lord.

But if he really had been banished for trying to do what’s right, then maybe I hadn’t been wrong about suggesting him being Fire Lord.

But what if he had been angry at me for saying so ill words about his father? Well, but he needed to be used to that by now. Certainly a lot of people in the Earth Kingdom were talking ill about the Fire Lord.

Now I was even more impressed by the fact that he could fight with swords and didn’t rely on his firebending skills only.

The soldiers wouldn’t find him here, but maybe they would find him later. He was only a few hours ahead of them. Could I risk it to sneak away and try to find him and warn him? Or would I rather lead the soldiers to him like that?

What the hell should I do? Damned, why couldn’t I talk to anyone about this?

I really could need my mother now. She had always listened to my problems and given me good advice. She would know now what to do. But I could imagine her telling me that I had to go after him, or that I had to stay at home because it was safer.

I would have to wait until the soldiers were gone, if I wanted to find Prince Zuko. And I would have to avoid them afterwards. I could take Onyx, my ostrich horse, to be faster than them and to catch up to Prince Zuko faster.

But where would he go? Where should I go?

Maybe south east since I had suggested that to the prince.

“Hey, Kira, are you okay?” my brother asked, having a worried expression on his face.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m just anxious about what will happen to Uncle if Prince Zuko and General Iroh are found here,” I lied.

Nanuk’s gaze hardened. “Well, whatever the princess might want to do with him, I will stop her.”

“You think you can take her? She’s a prodigy, haven’t you heard the people talking? I’ve even heard she can generate lightning and that her fire is blue, which means it’s even hotter!” I warned.

Aunt nodded. “Kira is right. Your uncle will know how to help himself. There is no need to put yourself in danger.”

My brother nearly bared his teeth. “Mother was killed because of the Fire Nation and I will not let anything happen to anyone else in my family.”

I snorted. “That’s funny. Father is currently surrounded by Fire Nation.”

“He is half Fire Nation! I’m not saying they are bad. I was just saying that I will protect you.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What about me? Will I be allowed to help you, oh great protector?”

“You think that’s funny?” Nanuk snarled.

“Of course not. But you always are so eager to throw yourself into battle and want me to stay behind. Mother left the North to flee such sexist thinking.”

Nanuk rolled his greyish blue-green eyes. “My, you’re so sensitive when it comes to oppression of women! I just don’t want anything to happen to you. I know you can fight. You’re one damn good bender, but I’m still your big brother and I will protect you whenever I can.”

My gaze and posture softened slightly while I was hearing what he said. “Thanks. But together we’d stand a better chance. And you’re only older by five minutes!”

“Oh, enough of this! No one is going off to fight anyone, especially no Fire Nation soldiers or princess!” Aunt Chunhua snapped and stood. She let a servant bring two books from our rooms. “Discussing highly improbable things won’t get us anywhere! You can just start your lessons now!”

Nanuk and I groaned in unison. Well, his lessons were still more exciting than mine, since he learned politics and economics. I only had history, family and household. When I’d first heard that, a few months ago, I had been laughing, thinking that had been a joke. It hadn’t been one, and household was a far more complex subject than I had ever thought.

But the book that had been brought to me was from family and part of the topic husband. What I was learning now was something that I rather hadn’t any knowledge in my head of.

Men were so disgusting and their anatomy was really strange. I couldn’t imagine myself doing any of these things at any time. Eeewww.

Nanuk always said that I was just a late pubescent and that I would be interested in boys that way in some time. But I still would have to marry a man before that time.

I sighed, took notes and kept reading in that nightmare causing book.

The Fire Nation soldiers were searching very thoroughly, for it took them five hours to come to the library. I was already hungry for lunch.

When we left the library, lunch was fortunately ready, and Aunt, Nanuk and I were pretty surprised to see Officer Sideburns and Officer Moustache sitting at the table. They were talking animatedly with Uncle, who introduced them to us.

I kept silent for the whole meal, since I knew Uncle preferred it that way with strangers, though it wasn’t easy. Officer Moustache wanted Uncle to meet his cousin very badly. He added that he was Nanuk’s age, had a great career in the military lying in front of him and that he was neither married nor engaged. Now, my fists clenched tightly around my chopsticks, and it took all my willpower not to freeze moustache’s head.

But fortunately, Uncle didn’t seem that interested in giving his niece to a Fire Nation soldier.

After the Fire Nation finally left, I waited an hour until I got ready. I had decided to try and find the prince.

It was the right thing to do, and he had been nice to me. No arrogant or superior behaviour. He had treated me like an equal, and after a day of being discussed between men like a piece of meat I almost longed to be in his non-sexist presence again.

I changed into long green pants and an old brown tunic that went to my knee. I simply pulled my hair into a bun and removed all the make-up from my face. With a green jacket, boots, a brown bag and a straw hat I was ready. Cautiously I sneaked off to the stables and was relieved that no one had noticed me. I didn’t look like the fine young lady the servants were used to and after that suspenseful morning they all seemed to think of something else.

Onyx greeted me with a quiet shriek and pressed his beak to my cheek. I stroked his dark feathers and gently pulled him outside with me.

When I was sure that no one had seen us I mounted my ostrich horse and pressed my legs to his sides, so that he knew to run.

I held on to the reins and was relieved to see that the traces of the Fire Nation were leading south west and not south east.

My mind was racing and I was wondering if I should tell the prince that I knew who he was. Or what I should say to him.

But after a while I relaxed as I always did on Onyx’s back despite the fast tempo.

It was already after sunset and stars were lightening the sky when I noticed an ostrich horse trace in front of me, going south east.

Was that Prince Zuko? Or did a soldier decide for himself to take an ostrich horse to search in another region for the prince? Or maybe it was just a normal traveller, not meaning any danger for me or the prince.

Nevertheless, I kept following the trace that went straight south east, but avoiding towns.

After a few hours – I could tell because of the moon’s position in the sky – I slowed Onyx down and marched off with him into the woods, since I needed to relieve myself.

Being on the ground again, I noticed that I was growing more and more tired. Last night had been exhausting, as had been this day. It was late, but I didn’t want to let my chance waste to eventually find Prince Zuko.

Yawning, I climbed Onyx again and kept him running for two more hours, until I couldn’t keep myself upright anymore. I felt out for water and discovered a creek, a little north from here. I led Onyx to the creak, letting him drink and pulled out a sleeping mat from my bag.

Before lying down to sleep, I also drank something and then I just fell onto my mat, falling asleep almost in an instant.

oOo

I woke up to a warm and soft feeling on my neck. It continued to my cheek, and I was wondering who was nuzzling me like that. No one was allowed in my room before I said so, except for my family, but they wouldn’t do this to me.

I opened my eyes, saw green leaves surrounding me instead of white walls and leapt up. It took me a moment to remember and to understand why I had been sleeping in a forest.

But there was no one instead for Onyx, and I reached up to gently stroke his beak. I let him have some food and focused on the moon. It wasn’t set yet, and the sky had still a greyish colour, which meant it was still early, dawn maybe. That was far too early for me. Normally I would still sleep for a few hours.

But I had a mission and knowing that firebenders tended to rise with the sun, I got ready and mounted Onyx. Stifling a yawn, I rode him back to the main road and kept him going south east. I would stroke Onyx absentmindedly from time to time or give him a treat.

Being focused and concentrated for so long was tiring me fast, since I wasn’t used to any of this.

Doubts were churning in my head. Did I really have to go after the prince? I had seen the Fire Nation soldiers leaving into another direction, wasn’t that enough? How long could I keep this up? What would Uncle do when I’d come back?

With a few breaks I managed to reach the edge of the orchard valley at the end of the day.

I had two buns, one apple, one dumpling and some cheese left. I ate a bun and some cheese while leading Onyx through the trees, now walking on my own, since my rear hurt from the saddle.

When the sun set, I set up camp again and looked around for any signs of a fire or smoke. Keeping a knife and my fighting water close, I settled on my mat, stroking Onyx’s feathers and pressing my face against his neck. I truly loved that animal. His presence always calmed and reassured me. I looked into his eyes and smiled, for he seemed to think that I should get some sleep and needed not to worry. He would take care of me.

Okay, maybe I was just imagining things now out of tiredness.

oOo

The orchard valley was vast, and I searched it for nearly a full day. I didn’t want to shout out the prince’s name, or Lee, but I became tempted to do so. Then he could just answer, and I would finally be done. But I didn’t want to alert anyone to my presence since the people in the orchard valley were mostly criminals. Thieves and fugitives. Well, Prince Zuko was that, too, but only because I thought that he wasn’t a bad person didn’t mean that I was completely naïve. This place was not safe for a fifteen year old girl.

Sometimes loud chatter or other noises alerted me to other people’s presence, and I was rather glad to leave the orchards behind me when I recognised an ostrich horse trace that looked just like the one from two days ago. I wished I somehow knew more about traces, but since it was my only hint, I kept following it.

On the next day, I went through a small desert town, in which the people all seemed hungry and miserably.

When I wanted to buy some food at a stall, people came closer towards me. I’d just received my change, when the first person began to speak.

“Go away, stranger! You are not welcome here!” a woman snarled.

I turned around and frowned at the people. “I was not about to stay. And now I wouldn’t want it anyway.”

A young man snorted. “Listen to that arrogance! You think you’re better than us?”

“I have done nothing wrong! You are the ones being rude to me!”

The young man and some of the others came closer, and I backed away. “We don’t like to have strangers here. Explain yourself and what business you have here!”

I crossed my arms, noticed Onyx to become nervous. “I’m simply a refugee, fleeing the war. I wish to go to Ba Sing Se where I can live in peace and harmony. Satisfied?”

The one who spoke narrowed his eyes on me. “I don’t like your attitude, girl.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” I said dryly. Not that I could help it, I always got a little bold when I had to deal with idiots.

Roaring out of anger, he made a move towards me, wanting to grasp my throat. Wow, his restrain wasn’t strong at all. But I had expected him to do just that.

I let my change fall into my pocket and simply dodged his hand. “Did you just want to slap me? I’m just a little girl, not even an adult! And you wanted to use violence on me?!” I cried out in alarm and more people moved towards us.

“What is this turmoil?” an old lady with a walking stick wanted to know and everyone made some space for her. Aha, that meant she was important.

“This stranger provoked me into a fight!” the man accused me, pointing his finger at me.

I rolled my eyes, but thanks to my straw hat, no one saw. I took the hat off and tried to look my most innocent. “Please excuse me, but there must be a misunderstanding. I was simply buying some food for my journey, when he ordered me out of the village. I felt insulted and explained that I’m a refugee and want to go to Ba Sing Se. That’s when he attacked me out of nowhere!”

“You little…” the man started again, but the old lady hit him with her stick. “Silence, you dick!”

I gasped, far too loudly, but couldn’t help but be shocked at that word.

The man flinched. “Ouch!” Suddenly he looked like a scolded boy, and I saw that he was not that much older than me.

The old woman came forward and examined me. “You are from the Water Tribe, aren’t you?”

I chose to nod. These people didn’t need to know that I was also a quarter from the Fire Nation.

The woman turned to the crowd. “And why shouldn’t we welcome someone of the Water Tribe here in our little humble village?”

Some faces stayed hostile, and I was wondering what had happened to these people.

As if she had read my mind, the old lady turned her head towards me and said in a voice low enough for only me to hear: “Please excuse their behaviour. Our village has been mistreated by the ones who should protect us. And they have been punished by the ones who should attack us. The people here get suspicious of everyone and outsiders are the worst to them.”

“May I ask what happened here exactly?”

“Mhm. Earth Kingdom soldiers were sent here to protect us from the Fire Nation. But without Fire Nation attacks these men didn’t have anything to do, so they grew bored and started to humiliate children, women and men, all alike. They had their fun and we suffered, for they were strong warriors and benders. Lee there …,”

I stiffened, searching the crowd for Prince Zuko, but the woman pointed at a small and skinny boy with big teeth and rumpled hair, who pressed himself to a woman’s side, “went against them and they punished him by recruiting him for the army.”

My eyes widened in horror, and I let out a gasp.

“Lee’s family had been kind to a stranger lately, who arrived here two days ago. He went against the soldiers to free Lee, but nothing was as it seemed. That boy who appeared to be so brave was no other than one of the worst of all. He suddenly used firebending while fighting a soldier and nearly killed him” The woman sounded shocked and horrified. But also as if she would share some good gossip. “The firebender claimed to be the banished prince of the Fire Nation. He said, he was heir to the throne, but that’s nonsense.”

“That’s not right!” an old man exclaimed. “He was the banished prince! He’s just not heir to the throne anymore! His own father burnt his face and banished him! Before he becomes Fire Lord, Earthbenders will fly!”

The old woman rolled her eyes. “Yes. Anyway, we were quick to drive him off and he left, fortunately.”

My heart beat faster and faster. So he had been here. I was probably following the right track. He had defended a little boy, protecting him from the horrors of the army and war, and these people hated him for that? No wonder he had been surprised at my behaviour towards him.

“Oh, that sounds terrible!” I exclaimed, covering my mouth with my hands. “To see the Fire Lord’s son defending a child against soldiers! That must have been a true shock!” I tried very hard to hold the sarcasm out of my voice.

Some people nodded, murmuring words of affirmation.

The old lady eyed me warily, surely having understood my tone. “You see now why strangers are not well seen here? It is better if you leave. I won’t be able to stop them from throwing you out by force.”

I tried to smile reassuringly. “Please, there is no need for that. I’ll leave. I only hope that your village will do better sometime.” I then bowed to the old lady to show my respect and led Onyx past the villagers. When I was on the main road again, I mounted him and quickly took off.

I was close. I was so close to find him.

The doubts in my head were still there, telling me that there was no need to continue this ridiculous quest. The soldiers were not looking for the prince in this area anymore, so why bother?

But I also knew that they could turn around and look for him here again. What if he would still be caught? Then that would be my fault, because I would have gone back. I couldn’t live with this possibility. I had already begun, and now I would accomplish my mission, dammit!

This evening I ate some of the dried meat and strange vegetables that I had bought in the village, when I felt three people approaching my camp.

They moved casually, as if going on a walk, but tired and exhausted.

I chose to stay quiet and was happy that I didn’t make myself a fire, which my mother had taught me.

Onyx made a nervous sound and I flinched, feeling that the people behind had stopped in their tracks. A few moments passed, and then suddenly they rushed forward. I rolled out of their way, jumped up and tore water from the creek behind Onyx.

I had always slept near a big water source in the last couple of days and was suddenly grateful for that habit. The water enclosed my arms as I settled into a defensive stance.

Three boys came out of the trees, all with drawn weapons. Two of them held two swords, but one had also a dagger in his mouth and the third had his bow bent and an arrow pointed at me.

No one spoke, until one of them with messy brown hair lowered his hookswords and frowned. “Katara? Is that you?”

Uh, no.

The boy signalled his companions to lower their weapons, too, but I didn’t relax my stand one bit. The boy held his hands up, palms towards me, and spoke in a soft voice. “Listen, I know you might not want to see me, but I’ve been meaning to apologise to you for what I did. I know now that I was wrong and blinded by my want for revenge. That village was innocent, and I’m glad that Sokka managed to rescue the people. I changed now, believe me and…”

Holy moon, what was he talking about? Sighing, I let the water drop to my feet and put my hat down. “I have no idea what it is that you exactly did, but the apology does not sound sincere. Whoever Katara is, she might not forgive you.”

The boy stared at me in disbelief. “You are not Katara.”

“Really?” I asked dryly and crossed my arms.

“Then who are you?” he asked, tensing a bit more.

“Not Katara, and there is no more you need to know,” I snarled and moved into a fighting stance again. “Now leave my campsite!”

The two other boys drew back, but messy hair held his palms up again. “Hey, there is no need to be so hostile. We’re just kids. As you are, too. Maybe we can just sit down, have a drink and talk. We don’t meet a lot of other kids out here and it would be nice to not talk to an adult again.”

I liked his attitude, so I relaxed and moved a bit closer. “Fine. You’re right. Being out here just makes me more suspicious of people.”

I had noticed that I had changed a bit during my journey. At home I had always been a friendly and forthcoming person. I’ve never been overly hostile or mean, and I usually asked questions before I attacked. I was glad that the boy still seemed to be like I had been before, and I chose to try to be more friendly and relaxed again.

“This is only logical. Traveling in a group helps against such feelings,” he said.

I smiled a bit and went to Onyx, to soothe him a bit. I stroked his neck until I noticed that he had calmed down, and then I tickled him under his chin, because I knew he liked that. His left leg moved up and down while he leaned into my touch.

The boys came closer and the messy hair one held his hand out to Onyx, so that he could nuzzle it. I smiled a bit at him and he smiled back.

“My name is Jet,” he said and turned to look at his companions. They had put their weapons away and came to stand next to Jet.

One of them had red stripes on his cheeks, but when he smiled, I started to wonder if this really was a boy. “I am Smellerbee and this is Longshot.” She gestured to the boy with the straw hat and bow and arrow. His face was neutral and he nodded.

I was suddenly relieved that I hadn’t said anything to them which would indicate that I had thought that Smellerbee was a boy. Now as I got a closer look it was pretty obvious to me that she was a girl. Her face held a softness that boys her age just hadn’t. Her clothes looked like an armour made of plates that didn’t fit together, but they also hid anything about her body that could indicate that she was a girl.

Longshot and Jet wore similar armours and I wondered what they did out here. They were probably real refugees, having lost their families in the war.

“It is nice to meet you,” I said and couldn’t help but bow to them in greeting. My manners were not easy to forget. “My name is Kilara Huang.”

Their eyes widened a bit and they bowed back quickly.

“That is a beautiful name,” Jet said, his eyes twinkling, and I smiled thankfully. He turned to smile at his friends. “So now, what about a nice and warm fire and some food? I’m starving.”

Smellerbee sighed contentedly. “Finally. I was already wondering if we weren’t going to eat anything today.”

Jet shrugged. “We have to save the food.”

“What if we all just share our food?” I asked.

Smellerbee grinned. “Sounds good to me.” Then she grabbed Longshot by his sleeve and tugged him towards the trees. “Come on, let’s go get some firewood!”

Jet watched how they left and then turned back towards me. I noticed a small straw in the corner of his mouth, as he smiled. “So, Kilara, where are you from?”

“I was born in Gaoling, but I’ve lived in many places since then,” I told him and walked back to my bag where I started pulling more food out.

Jet followed me and did the same with his bag. “Wow. Since Gaoling is in the south, are your parents from the Southern Water Tribe?”

I shook my head. “No, my mother is from the Northern Water Tribe, and my father is from the Earth Kingdom. He was born in the colonies.” I was always careful not to tell people, that my grandmother was from the Fire Nation. It had been different with Prince Zuko, since I had known that he wouldn’t react in a disgusted manner.

“Oh,” Jet exclaimed. “You know, where I come from, people don’t like hybrids. They believe that they are sneaky people, often criminals who cannot have strong bending powers. That the lack of belonging is somehow changing them to bad people. But I believe that it is a blessing. The Avatar is good and powerful, because he’s bending all four elements and the mix of more than one element in a person has to make them good and powerful, too. Although I’ve never seen a hybrid fighting, I have noticed that they all look stunning.” There he smiled at me again and nodded. “I should have known that you are a hybrid since you really are beautiful.” His voice sounded smooth and sure of himself. His smile was disarming, and he seemed to know that.

I felt heat crawl into my cheeks and looked away. “Thank you. I haven’t dealt with prejudices against hybrids yet, and I’m glad that you don’t share their belief.”

“Of course not,” he said, unwrapping some old and dry bread. “Those people are just idiots who are afraid of new things and possibilities.”

I tilted my head to the side. “What would you say if I had told you that I was half from the Fire Nation? Does your hybrid tolerance go this far or do you hate anything that has to do with the Fire Nation?”

His jaw clenched a bit, and I knew my answer immediately. But I faked innocence as I munched on one of my dumplings. I even offered Jet one. He took it hesitantly and stared down at his hands. When he looked at me again, I was shocked to see hurt and pain.

“I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t like anything that has to do with the Fire Nation, and not so long ago I even hated it. If you were half from the Fire Nation, I wouldn’t be so relaxed, but I would not attack you or anything. It just hurts to think about them as humans after such a long time of hatred against monsters.”

I felt my lips slightly open as I suddenly felt sad for him.

“They killed my family. They burnt to death in our house, and I had to watch. They let the children live to rise a new generation of Earth Kingdom people who would fear the Fire Nation even more.” His voice became hoarse and raspy. “Since then it was all too easy to hate them, to hate everything about them, and to be honest I don’t know if I would have survived if not for that hatred and the wish for vengeance. It kept me going all these years. But something had happened lately that changed everything. I realised that I was not on the right way and that I had to change if I didn’t want to become like the people I loathed.”

I reached out to squeeze his hand, and he wrapped his around mine. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s the war which is doing this to the people. I lost my mother a few months ago in a Fire Nation raid, and I also just wanted to hate them. I couldn’t stand the pain of losing her, and I focused on my anger. But I still had my father and brother, and they showed me that it doesn’t help anything to hate the Fire Nation. It just does damage to your soul, but it doesn’t bring the beloved people back,” I explained.

“That is so damn right. When I tried to change, I discovered how much that hatred had influenced my life and how dark and heavy my soul had felt. Now I feel the difference and it is easier to be happy.”

I shot him a genuine smile and sighed. “If only more people would realise this. The war is awful, but hatred does not help ending it.”

Jet leaned a bit in, and I noticed that we were still holding hands. “Then what do you think does help ending it?”

“The Avatar,” I said, feeling one hundred percent sure. “It is his duty to keep the balance in this world, and he has done so for thousands of years. This time will not be different.”

Jet smiled and chuckled a bit. “I’ve met him once, and I find it hard to imagine how that goofy little baldhead is going to defeat the most powerful firebender in the world.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yeah. He and his friends walked right into a camp of Fire Nation soldiers, which we wanted to attack. Together we defeated them, and I invited the Avatar and his friends to stay with us for a bit.”

“Wow. What is he like?”

Jet raised his eyebrows and smirked. “He was more concerned about having the most fun he could than to save the world. But he is still a kid, and I can’t imagine it to be easy to have to deal with this responsibility at the age of twelve.”

I frowned. “This is still so confusing to me that he is still a kid. Some people say that he was born right after Avatar Roku’s death, but that would mean that he is over a hundred years old.”

“I can help you with that. The Avatar is indeed the one after Avatar Roku, and he had been alive all these years ago. But before Fire Lord Sozin attacked the Air Temples, the Avatar flew through a storm and nearly died. To save himself, he froze himself into a giant ice orb, which floated deep in the ocean for a hundred years.” I totally hung at his lips, for he was a marvellous storyteller. He smirked. “Then, one day, two siblings from the Southern Water Tribe went hunting. The boy didn’t like to have his sister coming with him, because Water Tribe people believe that a women’s presence at a hunt means bad luck. And when he didn’t manage to catch a fish, but his sister did, he insulted her.” I frowned, growing angry about these stupid Water Tribe boys and men. “But his sister is a waterbender and being on the wide ocean, while insulting a waterbender, didn’t serve him well. But it did to the world. You see, the girl became so furious with her brother, insulting him right back, so that the sea around them churned. The icebergs shook and broke, until they fell back into the ocean. With one of them gone, the ice orb in which the Avatar had been frozen for a hundred years had its way free to appear on the surface. The waterbender used her brother’s weapon to crack it open and a blinding light flash appeared, until a boy fell out of the iceberg, right into her arms and asked her to go penguin sledding with him.”

I laughed then and shook my head. “You just made that up!”

Jet laughed, too. “No, I swear. The waterbender herself told me that these were the Avatar’s first words to her.”

I kept laughing for a while, until I noticed something and frowned. “Why don’t you say their names? You certainly know them.”

Jet sighed. “That’s because, well… The waterbender is Katara.”

My mouth formed an O, and I raised my eyebrows. “So, you didn’t part with them on good terms?”

Jet shook his head. “No, I tried to make them do something awful, but her brother, Sokka, managed to stop it, and they left immediately.”

“What did…”

“I don’t want to go into more detail.”

“I understand. It’s okay.” I tried to give him a reassuring smile.

“It really is funny. You remind me even a bit of Katara. You are both so kind and understanding. Compassionate.”

I chuckled a bit. “You clearly haven’t met a lot of Water Tribe people yet, for we are all known for our compassion. That’s why we can heal.”

Jet seemed to think about that and nodded. “Yeah, even Sokka, who doesn’t seem like a kind person at all, is compassionate. Even with the people from the Fire Nation.”

Smellerbee and Longshot came back with a big amount of wood and started to make a fire. I wanted to help, but they didn’t let me.

“So Kilara, what are you doing here? Traveling all alone?” Smellerbee asked with a curious voice.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “A few days ago, I met a boy, a fugitive. He was on the run from the Fire Nation. I gave him some food and helped him. But the Fire Nation appeared on our doorstep only a few hours after he had left, and I worried for his safety. I’ve been following his trace for the last few days.”

Smellerbee’s eyes were wide, and Jet had stopped eating for a moment. Longshot stared at me, chewing on the dried meat I had given them.

“Why are they looking for him? What did he do?” Smellerbee asked after a few moments.

“I don’t know exactly,” which was the truth. My mother had told me, that if I had to lie, it was always the wisest to remain as close to the truth as possible. “But the Fire Nation soldiers said he had killed one of their Admirals.”

Jet let out a whistle. “Wow, he must be one hell of a fighter if he won against a Fire Nation Admiral.”

Smellerbee rolled her eyes. “Or he is a sneaky and stealthy guy who attacked from behind or while the Admiral was sleeping.”

Jet shrugged, and I frowned. I didn’t like how they were talking about L…, dammit, Prince Zuko. “Well, he is a good fighter, but I think it was self-defence.”

Longshot nodded and kept eating. I frowned at him, wondering if he was mute or if he just didn’t like to talk. Sometimes I had moods like that, too, but they were only moods.

“And what about you? What are you doing out here?” I asked them and put a dried piece of carrot into my mouth.

Smellerbee and Longshot looked at Jet, and I wondered if he was something like the leader of their group. “After our encounter with the Avatar, err Avatar Aang, and his friends, we left our home. We want to go to Ba Sing Se to start a new life. We’ll be safe from the Fire Nation there.”

I nodded and felt my suspicions confirmed.

After that, our conversation left the serious topics, and Jet proved to me that he was really a marvellous storyteller. After living for years with a bunch of kids, he had a lot of fun stories to tell and even though Smellerbee and Longshot already knew them, they still laughed at them. Well, Smellerbee laughed, Longshot would just smile faintly.

It was really late when we chose to get some sleep. I felt bad, since I had my sleeping mat, but they didn’t have anything to sleep on. They just had thin blankets, but they didn’t complain, so I didn’t say anything.

I had a light sleep because in the back of my mind I knew that it would be foolish to trust people I had met a few hours ago. But when I woke up in the morning, my stuff was still there, and the three friends were still asleep. I smiled at Jet’s light snore and stood up to go to the creek to wash my clothes and myself.

I dove into the water, which cleared my head from my sleep and wished I could just sit in the water all day. But I quickly got out and bent the water out of my hair and clothes. Satisfied with my smell, I walked back and prepared some breakfast. Longshot was already awake, sitting in a lotus position a few steps away from the others. Was he meditating?

Jet and Smellerbee woke up to the scent of food and uttered a thank you in my direction before they started eating.

“I was thinking,” Jet suddenly said.

“O spirits, help us!” Smellerbee murmured, and Jet shot her a glare. She only returned a sweet smile, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of my brother. A sudden hurting feeling shot through my heart. Oh moon, what was he going through now? I missed him a lot, but I knew that I had to do this alone. Hopefully, he’d understand me when we would see each other again.

“I just wondered if we all couldn’t travel together. We’d help you find the fugitive and then we could all go to Ba Sing Se. He would be safe there, too. We’d look out for one another and…,” Jet shrugged, “…well, be safe.” He looked at me hopefully with a smirk. A weird combination, but he made it look good. Almost irresistible, but I couldn’t do that.

I had no desire to stay from home for forever, so I shook my head slightly, but smiled. “That is a really nice offer, also considering that you don’t know me well, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Jet had said that he had changed, but how much? His tolerance was surely not big enough to accept a firebender. And what if he had seen wanted posters from Prince Zuko or heard stories and would recognise him? And how would Prince Zuko react if I came to him with three strangers? If he were a deer dog, he’d just growl and bark at them, backing away, but not biting.

I sighed. No, that would be a terrible idea. “Lee – that’s the fugitive – won’t react well if I’d show up with other people that he doesn’t know. He also already knows that going to Ba Sing Se is his best option. And I couldn’t stay there with you. My family doesn’t know where I am, and I wish to return to them as soon as I will have warned Lee.”

Jet and Smellerbee looked disappointed, Longshot simply nodded.

“Oh,” Jet said softly. “Of course. I can understand that you wish to return to your family.”

Smellerbee smiled faintly at me. “It would have been nice to travel with another girl, though. Those two can be such dicks.”

I chuckled at Longshot’s shrug and Jet’s glare. “I know what you’re going through. I have a brother.”

Smellerbee smiled.

“But maybe we’ll see each other again soon. My father will go to Ba Sing Se in a few months, and I hope I’ll be allowed to go with him.”

Smellerbee grinned. “You just ran away from home to help a fugitive, but you are concerned about allowance to move with your father?”

I shrugged. “The fact that I ran away won’t help me in convincing my father to let me come with him.”

“That’s probably true,” Jet said.

I gave them all the food I had left, for I still had enough money to buy something on the way. Smellerbee and Longshot bowed again to me, before I mounted Onyx, but Jet surprised me with a hug. I hugged him back, feeling how tall and muscular he was.

“I thank the spirits for meeting you,” he said. “I hope we’ll see each other again and that the circumstances will allow us to spend more time together.”

I felt my heart flutter in my chest and my pulse quicken, for I noticed what his intentions were. The way his voice had deepened to a low rumble, his body pressed against mine and his face buried itself in my hair, was some indication.

I blushed, as I retreated and nodded. “I hope so, too.” Then I smiled at all of them and mounted Onyx who was fed and packed. “Take care and may the spirits protect you.”

* * *

_After Kilara was out of sight, Smellerbee turned to Jet with a knowing grin. “Look who looks all love struck.”_

_“Shut up,” Jet said, but not as annoyed as he could have._

_Smellerbee’s grin widened. “What is it with you and Water Tribe girls? Are the pale skinned Earth Kingdom girls not good enough for you?”_

_Longshot even chuckled a bit since he remembered a time when Smellerbee had had a crush on Jet. But that was years ago._

_“She is half Earth Kingdom,” Jet stated through gritted teeth._

_“Oooh, a hybrid. Even more exotic, isn’t it? Did you tell her that you think that hybrids are the most beautiful people due to the mix of their elements?” Smellerbee provoked him further._

_“I did!” Jet proclaimed proudly. “And she was very happy about it.” He waggled his eyebrows._

_Smellerbee groaned in an annoyed way and rolled her eyes, whereas Longshot just raised an eyebrow at Jet._

* * *

I thought a lot about Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot, and some part of me wished that I hadn’t left them, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

A few hours later, I noticed that I had lost Prince Zuko’s trace, and I grew frustrated.

Onyx and I were wandering around in a forest where I had lost his trace and I felt my jaw tighten. Perfect. This was just perfect!

I had just gone through a narrow arid landscape and was glad to be back under trees, but that didn’t matter when I had lost his damn trace!

I growled in frustration and let my head fall to Onyx’s neck. He was not all too well, either. My frustration and anger made him nervous. Sighing, I tried to soothe him, when the Earth suddenly shifted, and I fell out of the saddle.

“Arrghh!” I screamed, landing on my back, groaning. “Dammit!”

Suddenly, Onyx rushed forward, and I heard Earth rumble, then a shriek and Earth rumble again. Onyx made loud aggressive sounds.

“Get off me, you freaking animal! Leave me alone!” a girl screamed angrily, and I did my best to sit up.

Wow, I’ve never seen an ostrich horse fighting with an Earthbender. While Onyx tried to snap at her face, the Earthbender sent rocks flying his way or shot out a column right under his feet.

“Hey!” I shouted, stood up and ran towards them. I focused on Onyx and grabbed his reins, dodging his razor-sharp beak and claws. “Shhh. Shhh,” I whispered and rubbed his neck. “Everything’s okay. Everything’s alright.” He calmed down a bit but neighed nervously and shook his head.

“You got some overprotective ostrich horse problem,” the Earthbender behind me said.

Adding to overprotective brother and uncle problem.

I sighed and turned around. “You were the one to attack us!”

The girl was smaller than I had thought, and I figured she was three or four years younger than me. Her black hair was pulled up in a giant bun, and I felt envious of all the hair she had. Some bangs hung into her face, almost obscuring her eyes. She wore green pants with a green and yellow tunic and her feet were barefoot.

She shrugged. “I only wanted to weaken you if you were going to be a threat.”

“I wasn’t going to be, but you hurt my ostrich horse, so maybe I will be!” I snapped at her.

She sighed heavily and stomped her foot on the ground. I frowned, watching her concentrate.

“Your demonic ostrich horse is fine. It is not injured.”

“Demonic? The only demon I see is you, and it is a him!”

The girl crossed her arms and frowned. “Let me guess… You’re from the Water Tribe.”

I rolled my eyes. “What is there to guess?” I asked, gesticulating to my face.

Now the girl rolled her eyes. “Even if I know what you are doing and how tall and slender you are, I don’t really know how you look like.”

I frowned, staring at her in confusion. “Do you have an eye illness? Were you can’t see colours and only shadows? What’s it called? Maybe I can help you, I have healing powers.”

The girl spit on the ground and I made a grimace. Eewww.

“Yeah, exactly. I can’t see colours, but I also can’t see shadows and thank you, but your help will be useless, because it’s called blindness!!!!!” Her voice had only been sarcastic at the beginning, but she shouted the word ‘blindness’.

“Oh. Then do you see with your earthbending?” I asked curiously since I knew that Nanuk could tell if I was approaching him by feeling vibrations in the Earth. He had developed that skill while we had been playing hide and seek as kids. He had won. Every single time.

But when he told me how he did it, I studied waterbending and the human body with determination, until I could feel people around me due to the water in their bodies. And then I had finally won against my brother.

“Yeah, I do,” she said, sounding surprised. Her bangs moved a bit to the side, and I could see that she had dark circles under her eyes.

“Were you traveling all night?” I asked her.

“Unfortunately, yes. I and the guys I was traveling with were being followed by some strange girls. And every time I wanted to sleep, some girl started snapping at me for not helping her brother with his stinky bedroll, and then the other guy started shouting at me and that’s when I left.” She stomped her foot again and two stools of Earth shot out form the ground. She sat on one and I took the other one. “And what are you doing here?”

“Following a fugitive to warn him that the soldiers looking for him were close.”

The girl nodded and sighed. “Damn, since I left home, nothing’s normal.”

I chuckled. “You tell me. I left home a few days ago and the first people I met told me that a firebender defended an Earth Kingdom child against Earth Kingdom soldiers. But he was still a firebender, so the villagers cast him out.”

The girl whistled. “Wow. That’s something. Have you ever seen someone bending blue fire?”

I flinched. “No, I haven’t.”

“Me neither. But if I weren’t blind, I had seen it just last night.”

No, that couldn’t be. “Did that fire come from one of those girls you mentioned?”

The girl narrowed her eyes at me. “Maybe.”

“Was that far from here? Please, I need to know!” I exclaimed, leaning towards her.

“Why should I tell you? As far as I know you could be chasing these guys I travelled with, too!”

I frowned. “I have no idea who these guys are, nor why princess Azula, if it’s really her, should chase them, unless they are General Iroh and Prince Zuko!”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “I was not traveling with Fire Nation royalty! But why do you think that the blue fire girl was Princess Azula?”

“Because she is known for that. She is a firebending prodigy, and blue flames are damn seldom! She is looking for her brother and uncle to imprison them, and I have to find Prince Zuko before her!”

“So that you can imprison him in an Earth Kingdom prison?”

“No! Because he does not deserve to be imprisoned by his sister! He is not a bad person.”

“So, you know him.”

“Yes.”

The girl chuckled. “The guys I was travelling with know him, too. But they were talking about him in a slightly different manner. I think Sokka said ‘angry freak with a ponytail who tracked us all over the world’.”

I frowned. “He does not have a ponytail! His hair is short!”

“Maybe he had had one and cut his hair. Sometimes people do that.”

I stared at her and tried to keep my temper down. Oh, she had a way to annoy me even worse than Nanuk!

“Then maybe he did. But he is not a freak. He might be very angry, but given the fact that his life didn’t turn out the way he wanted and just went from worse to even worse, I understand it.”

The girl’s lips curved into a grin. “Do you have a crush on him?”

My eyes widened in horror, and I sat up straight. “No! I do not!”

If I had a crush on anyone it would be Jet, and I also did not have a crush on him. I did not have a crush on anyone! I was only fifteen, and I had never liked boys that way! “What kind of question is that to ask for an eleven year old?”

She moved her foot and some earth smacked me from underneath. “Ouch!”

“I am twelve years old!”

“Fine. Then twelve. That is still too young to think about something like that.”

Suddenly she exploded in laughter. “Oh, if you could just tell that the one guy I was traveling with!”

And then it all made sense. Why the Fire Nation princess was chasing them and why they hadn’t talked nicely about Prince Zuko. I remembered Jet saying that Avatar Aang’s friends were called Katara and Sokka. And this girl had mentioned a Sokka. Moreover, Jet had said that the Avatar was twelve years old.

But I had no idea how old Sokka was and if she was talking about the Avatar, was she then referring to Katara or to herself?

“Are both your male companions twelve years old or is it only Aang?” I asked boldly and saw her stiffen.

She jumped to her feet. “Who the hell are you and what do you know?”

I remained seated and smirked to myself, feeling smug and good that she was suddenly angry like I had been for most of the time now! “I’m no one, really. Well, my uncle owns the biggest oats and rice fields in the Earth Kingdom, but that’s not so important.”

“You’re a Huang?”

I was completely startled by that. “You know my family’s name?”

“I know every important Earth Kingdom name,” she stated arrogantly and crossed her arms again.

“Why?”

“Was part of my education.”

“And who are you? You’re clearly from a fine family, too, if you learned all these names.”

“You go first.”

“You already know my name!”

“Your family’s name, but not your name!”

“Hnpf.” I looked away.

I heard her sighing. “We can do this the nice way or the hard way. I am an Earth Rumble Champion and whatever good your bending is, you cannot take me! So, tell me your name and what business you have with the Avatar and those Fire Nation royals!”

I clenched my teeth but knew that I would just lose time if I let myself get talked into a fight by her. “My name is Kilara Huang. I met Prince Zuko a few days ago. After he left, Fire Nation soldiers came to look for him, and I left after them to find and warn him. Yesterday I met some guys who want to go to Ba Sing Se. They said that they had met Avatar Aang, Katara and Sokka. They told me about them. I’ve never met them myself and I only know things about Princess Azula by stories. Satisfied?”

The girl smirked and sat down again. “Was this that difficult?”

I nearly punched her in the face, but I think she knew that.

“My name is Toph Beifong and I agreed to teach the Avatar Earthbending. I’ve only been traveling with them for a day, but since Katara is a little bitch and the Avatar cannot stomach the truth, I am out of there now!” Her voice sounded very sulky and she huffed.

I raised my eyebrows. “You are a Beifong? I didn’t know they had more relatives with the name.” As far as I knew, Lao and Poppy Beifong were the only ones with the name Beifong, since Lao didn’t have any siblings and his parents were dead. 

Toph rolled her eyes. “Lao and Poppy are my parents.”

I nearly shrieked in surprise. “What? But… I’ve never heard of…”

Toph interrupted me. “They kept me sheltered because of my blindness. They think I’m fragile and weak and that I can’t look after myself. Even after seeing how I defeated seven earthbending pros in a row, my father wanted to keep me sheltered.”

I whistled. “Wow, and here I thought I needed to complain about the overprotectiveness of my family.”

Toph smiled a bit at that. “That’s why I agreed to follow Aang. I didn’t want to stay at home. But now I don’t know what to do.”

I felt sad for the small girl who sounded so tough. I laughed at that thought.

“What is it?” she snapped.

“I just thought you were tough and that sounds a bit like Toph, you know, your name.”

Toph raised her eyebrows and sighed. “I guess the Water Tribes all have the same kind of humour.”

I smiled at that. “Maybe. My father always says I’ve got my mother’s humour, and she is from the Northern Water Tribe.”

“So, you’re a hybrid, then?”

I nodded. “Yep. Half water, a quarter earth and the other quarter fire.”

Toph whistled again. “So, you’re nearly an Avatar yourself.”

I laughed a bit at that and shrugged. “Not quite, but I’m a really good waterbender.”

Toph smiled. “I don’t doubt it.” She stood up, and the earth stools disappeared into the forest floor again, making me fall flat on my rear. “I don’t want to stand in your way from finding your precious prince. Go on, then!”

I just managed to stand up, rubbing my rear. “He is not…”

But Toph only laughed. “Seriously. If he’s not that bad, he doesn’t deserve to be found by his sister. That's some scary badass.”

I shuddered but smiled and bowed to her. “Thank you very much. Also, for trusting me.”

Toph grinned but bowed back. “It’s not trust, it’s knowing. You weren’t lying, then why should I lie to you?”

“Good point.” I mounted Onyx and smiled down at the earthbender. “I hope you’ll find a solution to your situation and that your parents will understand you sometime.”

“Thank you. Now go and find the angry freak!” she exclaimed and sent a rock to Onyx’s butt which made him dart forward.

“Uaahh!” I had some trouble to take control over the reins again, but soon enough I had them firm in my grip.

It took me more time than I wished for to find the other ostrich horse’s trace again, and I had already become frustrated. It only got worse when I noticed that Prince Zuko had been followed by another trace. Two deep parallel lines of some giant vehicle. Oh no. Was that Princess Azula?

I pressed my thighs deeper into Onyx’s sides, making him go faster.

“Come on!” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t make me be too late!”

I don’t know how much time had passed, it could have been a few minutes or an hour, but I could see the vehicle in the distance, and I chose to approach it from the side, when I saw a trace of some giant lizard feet and also the ostrich horse trace again. I felt somehow relieved to know that Prince Zuko was not captured yet. Again, I pressed Onyx to become faster, since I knew that now every second was important.

The lizard’s traces divided, only one following the ostrich horse, and I had a mental image of Princess Azula – even if I didn’t know how she looked like – to strike her brother down, throwing him out of a house. My jaw set in anger, and I barely noticed the other trace of white fur, when I came into a large arid valley, surrounded by a mountain range. In the distance, I could see some smoke in a small village, and I made Onyx run even faster.

“Come on!” I said again, praying that I wasn’t too late. I made it to the entrance of the village, noticing that it was abandoned and jumped from Onyx’s back, seeing another ostrich horse down the road. I sighed, feeling relieved, but then I saw the giant lizard creature behind me and flinched. However, it didn’t do anything to attack, and I simply made my way towards the fighting noise. But suddenly it died down, I ran faster, making it around the corner of a house to see several people focusing on a girl in a corner. She held her hands up.

“A princess surrenders with honour,” I heard her say.

I swallowed and chose to remain where I was. They were six against one: Prince Zuko, two Water Tribe kids, a boy clad in orange and yellow, I recognised Toph (How had she got here so fast?), and there was an old man with a giant belly. Probably General Iroh and the other three kids had to be Sokka, Avatar Aang and Kat…

All of a sudden, the princess made a step forward and shot a blast of blue fire at General Iroh. My hand went to my mouth when I suppressed a cry.

The old man groaned and fell to the ground, not moving. Prince Zuko roared in rage and suddenly all of them attacked the princess with their elements. Sokka threw a metal weapon at her, but I didn’t know what it was called. The elements exploded and I ducked around the house corner. When I looked at them again, the princess was gone.

Prince Zuko sat beside his uncle, his head in his hands and groaning angrily.

Aang, Sokka, Katara and Toph approached them, and suddenly Prince Zuko turned his head. “Get away from us!” he shouted.

They didn’t move, then Katara took a few steps forward. “Zuko, I can help!” she offered.

But he only sent fire their way without burning them and yelled: “Leave!”

The four friends looked at each other and turned away, leaving.

I frowned at them, wondering why they hadn’t still tried to help the old man, but I knew that I could help.

I built up my courage and took a deep breath before I made my way to them. Prince Zuko didn’t seem to be in a good mood, and I needed to be careful.

When he noticed me, his head snapped up, and I could tell that he was ready to yell again or fight again, but he flinched when he saw me, and his eyes widened slightly. “What are you doing here?” he asked, still sounding a bit hostile.

Oh moon! Swallowing I braced up and moved closer to the two Fire Nation royals.

“I want to help,” I simply said. “I can heal him with my waterbending,” I added and saw how his features only deepened into a scowl. “If you let me, he’ll survive. He’ll be fine again.”

His eyes narrowed at me, then he looked down at his uncle, and his expression softened slightly. “Fine,” he growled. “Go ahead and heal him. But you do one wrong move, and I’ll make you pay!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Tag Police (is that an actual account or does this belong to ao3?) pointed out that I can add Zuko (Avatar)/Original Character(s) to the relationship tag section. I actually tried to do that at first, but this tag didn't appear... However, now I found it, and now my story is able to be found under this relationship tag, too. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading!:) 
> 
> The next chapter should be uploaded in a week. There will be Zuko's POV in there, too.


	3. Mutual Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kilara does her best to heal Iroh, but a mistrustful Zuko watching over her shoulder doesn't make it easy for her. Meanwhile, Nanuk is looking for his sister.

**_Kilara_ **

My eyes widened in fear. Did I do a mistake? Did I misjudge Prince Zuko, or ‘Lee’?

A knot formed in my throat, but I told myself that he was just afraid. A person he loved was injured, so he lashed out. I took a deep breath and remained where I was. I knelt down beside the general and bended water out of my water flask. Then I laid my hands on his chest and concentrated to feel the state of his body.

Yes, the fire had done a lot of damage. His heart was affected, but I concentrated to make the water knit everything back together, soothe the flesh and make the burn go away.

When I removed my hands, the skin was a bit rosy, but everything was closed and I knew that his heart was out of danger.

I sighed and looked up at the prince. Should I let him know that I knew his true identity?

Instead I said: “He’s your uncle, isn’t he?”

He nodded while examining my work on his uncle’s chest. He looked completely amazed. “I’ve never seen healing powers before,” he said softly.

“He’s out of danger for now, but I’ll need to heal him later again. His heart should be okay, but he’ll need rest. Lots of sleep and he shouldn’t move a lot in the next couple of days,” I explained.

Prince Zuko frowned. “I thought, you just had to heal him once and that would be it.”

I shook my head. “That’s only the beginning and it depends on the graveness of the injury. The new tissue I have created is still fragile, and it will become stronger when I’ll heal him again. The human body cannot bear a full healing, for it would do more damage than healing. Our bodies are used to things going slowly.”

“I see,” he murmured and absentmindedly touched the scar on his face.

Painfully the memory of the old man from the hostile village came back to me, as he had said that the Fire Lord – Prince Zuko’s own father – had done that to him.

The dying sun turned everything into bright orange light, making the prince’s skin seem darker and his eyes more amber than golden.

Prince Zuko pinched his nose, and then he looked at me and swallowed. “Thank you. But what do you want for it?”

I frowned. “Want? Lee, I only did that to help you both.”

His eyes narrowed again, and I was thinking about these stupid villagers who had hated him for helping a child.

“I have no desire to see your uncle die or to see you suffer when I can help. After all, the water healers’ codex is to never turn your back on people who need you.” My mother had told me that, and that’s what had irritated me earlier with Katara. She shouldn’t have backed away just because of some fire and an angry teenager.

“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head, now looking down at his uncle. “Have you been following me?” he wanted to know, his voice deep and calm. It reminded me of the sea before a storm.

“Yes, I have.” And like I had anticipated his head snapped up and he let out a low growl. There was even smoke coming out of his nostrils.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “There were soldiers coming to my house, looking for you. You were only a few hours ahead of them, so I chose to try to find you to warn you. I then also learned about the princess and I simply got worried! It is not me who wants to imprison you!”

He looked away, and I figured that he didn’t know how to react. But then: “Thank you. That was not necessary.” His voice was completely neutral, and I wondered if he really meant it.

“Well, it looks like it’s still good that I followed you. If I hadn’t been here…”

The prince flinched, pressing his eyes shut.

I swallowed and didn’t know what to say. He must have been through a lot since the last time I had seen him.

“Listen, I am only here because I want to help you. I don’t want anything from you.”

He sighed, and I could nearly see how his anger flew away. “Okay. You want to help? Help me carry my uncle away from here.”

I nodded, getting to my feet. “Wait here. I have an ostrich horse, he can carry your uncle.”

He nodded, eying me warily as I turned around and ran to get Onyx. He wasn’t as far away as I had left him and I gently pulled at his reins, noticing that the lizard was gone and that the other ostrich horse was following Onyx to the princes.

“Here,” I said, stopping and then kneeling down, helping the prince to lay the general on Onyx’s back.

“We have to get out of here. Azula can be back any second,” Prince Zuko said, nodding towards the mountain range.

I raised an eyebrow at the way he spoke out the princess’s name without mentioning her title. But I merely nodded and led on Onyx.

The prince mounted the other ostrich horse and held his hand out to me. “Come on. We’ll be faster like this.”

I nodded again and took his hand, letting him help me to get onto his ostrich horse. I still held Onyx’s reins while my other arm lay around the prince’s waist. Otherwise I would have fallen down.

I couldn’t relax for one second, always looking over my shoulder if the evil princess would follow us. But nothing happened, and we reached the mountains without any trouble. The ostrich horses began the ascent, and we found an abandoned and completely decayed house on the top of a mountain.

I went through my stuff and laid out my bedroll for the old general in the biggest room of the house. Then I helped the prince to lay him down there, gently.

“Why isn’t he waking up?” the prince demanded to know.

“He will remain like this for a while. His wound has healed, but his body and mind still need to recover. His energy level is still not high enough to wake up.”

The prince nodded simply and settled into a lotus position.

What was there to do for me now? He clearly didn’t want to talk, and I’ve already saved his uncle.

My mother had always reminded me that although waterhealing was great and all, one should never rely on one solution only. So I stood up and looked for bandage in my bag.

I had really packed my things carefully, thinking about every outcome.

I also had a medicine against burns with me, and I went back with that to the general. As I started to remove his tunic, Prince Zuko’s hands grabbed mine. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low and under control. Damn, there must really be a storm raging inside of him.

“This will help him. This is simply balm against burns, and the bandage will cover it,” I explained calmly and freed my wrists from his grip.

I could feel his eyes on me, while I was working. He clearly was behaving like a scared deer dog, and I sighed lowly.

“What is it?” he immediately wanted to know, leaning forward and staring at his uncle and me.

“Oh, nothing. He’s fine.”

“Then why were you sighing?”

I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. “Are you serious? I’m not allowed to sigh after I worried about you for days and slept on the forest floor and rode an ostrich horse fourteen hours a day?”

“It’s not like I have been doing any other things,” he spat out and crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking to the side.

“Is that why you’re behaving like an idiot again?” I asked and was suddenly glad that I hadn’t told him that I knew who he was. Talking like that to the prince of the Fire Nation… urgh.

“Don’t you talk to me like this!” he roared and clenched his fists.

“Will you be quiet?! Your uncle needs silence and rest, and what if the princess is still out there?” I hissed and only felt a little bit satisfied when I saw him flinch.

For a few moments his expression looked actually like a little boy’s pout, then he got up on his feet. “I’m going outside.”

I watched him go and continued to wrap the general’s left chest in bandages.

When I was done I waited a few minutes for the prince to come back. When he didn’t, I got worried, grabbed three water flasks, that I bound around my waist and went outside quietly.

The prince was nowhere to be seen, but there were also no signs of a fight.

I rubbed my hand over my face, feeling tired and exhausted. Sighing I walked further towards the trees and the boulders and made my way through them. Even if I didn’t find the prince, I would at least explore the surroundings and know advantages and disadvantages of the environment. But I couldn’t move far away and leave the old general defenceless.

I looked around again one more time and chose to go back.

When I wanted to lie down to try to get some sleep, I felt my stomach rumble and growled in an annoyed manner. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that day. That had still been with Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot, but it felt like it was a week ago. So much had happened today.

And now I didn’t have anything to eat. I still had some money to buy food, but where could I buy food in the desert where there only were rocks and an abandoned village?

Maybe I had been stupid to give my food to the three friends, but I didn’t regret it. They needed it more. It would take me less than a week to get back home, and I knew that humans could live longer than a week without food. The only thing was that I wasn’t used to not eating for days. I had never skipped a meal, not once. I always cherished those moments when my family came together to eat and talk.

I curled up on the floor, near to the general and watched his steady breathing.

Although Prince Zuko hadn’t behaved in a welcoming manner towards me, I was sure that he wouldn’t hurt me.

He didn’t know that I knew who he was, so he only could behave like ‘Lee’ would. He also had left me alone with his uncle, and I realised that this was proof of his trust in me. I couldn’t help but smile at that thought although I was shivering.

I tried to concentrate on General Iroh’s constant breathing to fall asleep, but the chilly night air in the desert hindered me. I rubbed my arms and tried to ignore it.

After a while, I could hear footsteps and soon enough there was a shadow in the doorway. Without any light I couldn’t see who it was, but he ignited a flame in his hand, illuminating the pale and angular face of his with the raven black hair on top of it.

He came closer and lied down on the other side of his uncle, snuffing the flame, which truly was a shame, since it also had warmed the air a little bit.

“Would you mind making a fire?” I asked.

Instead of answering he got up, and I thought that he would break the furniture apart for firewood, but he walked around his uncle and settled next to me.

I turned towards him, a small frown on my face.

“You’re cold?” he asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

I nodded.

“A fire would light the house too much and if we don’t want to sleep in smoke, the smoke will rise and show everyone around that there’s someone here. That wouldn’t be good,” he said softly.

“Oh, right. Sorry, I just… it’s okay.” I bit down on my lip and tried to suppress my shivers.

Suddenly I felt warmth coming from in front of me, as if there was a campfire, but I only could see the prince there. I looked at him questioningly.

“I can heat my body temperature,” he explained, not looking at me.

I only stared at him, asking myself if it would be okay if I’d move closer to him. He was so warm, and I wanted to snuggle into his heat, to feel it as if a blanket would cover me. It was just because he was warm and I was freezing. It’s not like I wanted to be any closer to _him_.

He seemed to notice how I moved towards him, since he turned on his side to face me. “Er… if you need to you can come a little closer.” His voice was very hesitant and almost sounding shy.

Without saying a word, I closed the gap between us and snuggled my head under his chin. I let out a soft sigh.

And yep, I was still aware of the fact that this was the prince of the Fire Nation, but he was also just a moody teenager and had never done anything to hurt me. Despite of what he was, I trusted him.

Well, at least with not killing me in my sleep.

His heart beat quickly and his body seemed tense, as I laid a hand between our bodies, almost touching his chest.

I was almost already asleep when I felt him relax and then laying his arm loosely on my waist.

A light smile curved my lips, and I noticed that I felt strangely safe with him.

**_Zuko_ **

There was not one rational reason forming in my head for having this girl in my arms.

First, there was no reason for why she was here at all. Why bother with following me for days, just to warn me about soldiers?

I knew she had said that she only wanted to help, but I couldn’t get it into my head that she was doing this selflessly. That didn’t make sense to me since I’ve never met anyone like that.

But I also had never wanted to hold a girl in my arms like other guys did. And now I did.

Why did she want to be here? Why did I allow it?

Well, my body had an answer, but it was none that pleased me. All of my previous teenager years, I had contemned how other boys acted just because of some hormones. I actually had been proud of myself for not feeling or acting on such primal needs. It hadn’t been anything important to me and honestly, I never had had the time to think about something like that.

Uncle had tried to wake up my interest for many girls, even some prostitutes, but I always had felt uncomfortable with that, and I had had other things on my mind. How could Uncle expect me to flirt or to have sex when I needed to find the Avatar? When I needed to practise, to meditate, to prepare for my encounter with him?

I had been obsessed with the Avatar, and now I had to concentrate on surviving. There had been no place for puberty or girls.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit shy and unsure about having La in my arms. She was a nice and pretty girl. And I held her in my arms, while she was asleep.

I had done that willingly. I had put my arm around her.

My mind had apparently found another obsession, since I couldn’t think about anything else. How was I going to sleep like that?

How could she be so calm that she could sleep? That was not fair.

Why were my hormones raging, but hers did allow her to sleep?

I sighed and shifted around to get a bit more comfortable, but that was kind of impossible on that hard wooden floor.

But after a while my exhaustion kicked in, and I could finally find some peace of mind. As I relaxed, I noticed that La felt nice in another way. She made me a bit more comfortable and now even helped me to relax more. I hadn’t slept next to a person since I had been a little child, and maybe that was already fourteen years ago, but it felt really nice. Reassuring and comforting.

I wondered how it would feel to lie behind her, to press my chest against her back or if I could snuggle my head between her chest and shoulder, as I had often done, when I had been curled up on my mother’s lap.

But for now, I was lying on my side, one arm tugged under my head, the other one around her and her hot breath against my chest.

I glanced at Uncle for one last time, then I closed my eyes and allowed my tiredness to wash my consciousness away.

As usual I felt a thrilling energy running through my body at sunrise and opened my eyes. Uncle seemed fine and the interior of the house hadn’t changed one bit during the night. We probably were still safe.

But La’s head wasn’t snuggled under my chin anymore. No, her face was right in front of mine, our noses almost touching. I blinked a few times and noticed that we had gotten really close over the night. We held each other in a tight embrace, our bodies touched from chest to toe and my leg lied between hers, so that hers was on top of mine.

I swallowed and tried to keep my calm. She had probably only sought my warmth and I her softness. It was different from hard floors or the mattresses on my ship where the whole interior of my cabin had only had sharp edges, but that softness was nice. I probably had wanted it unconsciously, which I didn’t like at all.

The sky got lighter, but the air was still cold.

I was hungry and I wanted to do some firebending exercises, but if I left La would be cold again.

Well, what did I care? I had been nice enough, letting her cuddle with me all night long. That was certainly already too much to give from a prince of the Fire Nation. My father would not have let her do this. He’d let her freeze.

Determined to find inside of me that prince who I should be, I pulled away, though slowly and carefully to not wake her up. Her body wiggled a bit and she moaned slightly in her sleep, while it looked like she was reaching out for me, clearly already missing my body heat. I stared at her in astonishment. Even if it was only my body heat, I felt thrilled at the thought that she was missing something from me. Since Lu Ten and my mother no one ever had, or at least no one had ever shown me that they missed anything about me.

Okay, alright, there was Uncle, but… that wasn’t enough.

Maybe that was supposed to show me that firebenders were indeed better than others, for we didn’t have to shiver. At least not in normal climate zones. The North Pole had certainly taught me that firebenders could actually freeze. My firebending had saved my life, but I still had been cold like I’d never been before, and I hadn’t been able to do anything against that.

Frowning I stood up, checked on Uncle’s pulse, and went outside where I began with stretching and breathing exercises.

I turned my back to the big opening of the house, for I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate that well with looking at a sleeping La and a resting Uncle.

After that I moved through a few basic katas to warm up and concentrated on keeping the flames as small as possible.

When I was satisfied with that, I tested my agility, which was most important in close combat fighting and which had been very important yesterday and probably had saved my life.

I ached to run towards the boulders, which were scattered around the small forest next to the decayed house, to run between them and climb them and jump from one to another, but I wouldn’t move that far away from the house.

After a few back flips, somersaults and cartwheels, I sank slowly into a back arch and felt a sudden hurt in my stomach. Hissing I stood up again and pressed my hands against my stomach, which didn’t stop hurting.

I hoped it only was a strained muscle and warmed my hand a bit to ease the pain.

“You liar!” I heard La shouting from the open wall in the house and quickly turned to look at her, wide eyed. What was it? Had she somehow found out who I really was?

“You are hurt!” she accused me.

I held back a sigh and shook my head. “I didn’t lie to you. I only felt it now.”

La huffed and marched towards me, her expression determined. I backed away before she could come into my personal space.

“Why are you walking away?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

“Because I don’t want you toe to toe with me!”

“And then how should I heal you?”

“Heal me?” I frowned, feeling confused.

Her expression softened a bit. “Yes, heal you! You are hurt, I am a healer!”

“But…” Okay, I didn’t even know what to say instead of ‘A Fire Nation prince will not be healed by a waterbender hybrid!’, but obviously I couldn’t say that.

“Lie down!” she ordered, and I kept standing, feeling rather defiant at her orders. No one was ordering me around!

“Oh moon! You are so stubborn! I don’t think that you know anything more about healing than me, so would you please lie down, since it is the best position to heal your stomach!” she explained, sounding angry.

I didn’t want to make her angry and I also didn’t want to feel the pain in my stomach, but still… I was the prince of the Fire Nation and I had let this girl help me with far too much.

“Lee, please. I just want to help you. Please lie down and let me heal you. It won’t hurt, I promise,” she said softly, and I stared at her, trying to read her.

Finally, I nodded and lied down on the ground.

I tried not to flinch or show any sign of discomfort or fear, when she removed my tunic from my stomach. I swallowed, tensing up extremely.

This would be okay. She only wanted to help.

I was not lying here helpless. There was not going to be any pain or suffering.

I felt cool water on my skin that soothed the pain until it was gone.

Wow, that felt incredible.

I regretted that I hadn’t watched how La had done it.

She retreated and I sat back up quickly, closing my tunic and looking at her.

She looked different from the last time I had seen her. She wore normal green and brown clothes, similar to my own, but her hair was in a ponytail this time.

Her face was a bit dirty and she looked exhausted, her cheeks even not as round as they had been a week ago. It couldn’t be healthy to lose such weight in so little time.

There was still some bread, meat and fruit in my bag, and I was happy to finally be able to offer her something.

“Thank you,” I quickly said as I remembered what she had just done to me. ”For the healing. Er… Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, a lot actually,” she said, looking flushed.

“Then let’s get some breakfast.” I stood up, brushing off the dirt from my clothes and walked back to the house.

I heard her sigh and follow me.

Uncle still lay there motionlessly except for his breathing. I really tried to be patient with him or with La’s healing powers, but it always felt like a stab to my chest when I saw him like this.

Not so long ago, I had referred to him as lazy and weak, but I thought that I understood him better now. Uncle’s powers have never been weak; he hadn’t been called the Dragon of the West for drinking tea and reciting proverbs. But it always was a shocking surprise to me to see him using his full bending capacities to go against an enemy.

My understanding for his weakness had been his lack of willingness to fight or to attack. I knew that Uncle was kind and friendly, but I had never understood how he could hold onto these features in regard of war or an enemy.

And hadn’t I met La, I still wouldn’t understand it. But La was kind and friendly towards her enemies, i.e. me, too, which I still didn’t understand fully, but I knew that I could be kind and friendly towards her, too without being betrayed or burnt.

I wanted Uncle to wake up desperately, just so that he could see that I learned something from him. I wanted to know what he thought about La, and if I was right with trusting her. If he would support me with these kinds of feelings.

I really much thought he would, but then again I was rarely capable of predicting his thoughts.

I pressed my eyes shut to clear my mind, while I was kneeling down to search in my bag for food. This was still from Lee and his family. They had given that to me before they had known who I was, obviously.

I pulled out the bread, cheese and dried meat they had given me. I put some of it to the side for Uncle, then I handed some food to La, who sat down in front of me.

She smiled at me, as she accepted and inclined her head a bit. “Thank you.”

I merely nodded and took some bites from the bread. I was wary of her gaze, for I thought that she might have a lot of questions. All of them would lead her to who I am.

“How have you been?”

That was not the kind of question I had anticipated.

I stopped eating and had to think, my mind going kind of blank. “Well, I… er…” I sighed and let my head drop down. “I’m here, aren’t I? And I’m fine. So I have been okay.”

La’s eyes narrowed at me. “I don’t believe you. You are so different from the last time I have seen you. And that was only a few days ago.”

I flinched. “What should be different?”

“You.”

“I’m not different!” I snapped. “I haven’t changed one…” No, I couldn’t end this sentence, not when I knew that it was not true at all. Even I knew that I had changed. Meeting Lee, his family, those soldiers and the hateful hostility against the Fire Nation had changed me a little bit.

La’s expression went smug, and I glared at her.

“I had to convince you again and again that I only want to help. You are so distrustful, as if we had never met. I helped you last time, didn’t I? Why wouldn’t you trust me now with helping you?” She paused in her meal and looked at me with these questions in her eyes.

I tensed all the more. “That’s ridiculous,” I muttered.

“No, you are being ridiculous!” she hissed at me, much harsher than I had thought.

I narrowed my eyes at her, since I didn’t like to be talked to like this. “It’s not ridiculous to be cautious! I was just trying to protect my uncle!”

La folded her arms and looked the other way. “I found out that you are from the Fire Nation because of your eye colour. But I still trusted you. Even when you were almost praising the Fire Lord, I knew you were not going to harm me. And I know you won’t now. You don’t want to. So if I can trust you, then why can’t you trust me? I am younger than you, I am a female, I am a waterbending hybrid! Why are you scared?”

My eyes widened as I stared at her frustrated face. My jaw clenched and I looked to the side. People being younger than me or female had never stopped me from being cautious around them. If I hadn’t been, I would have a lot more bones cracked in my childhood. “It’s not as easy as you put it.”

“Oh, really?” she drawled.

My head snapped back at her. “Yes!” I hissed. “I was totally differently raised from you. Trust would have probably get me killed at the… in the Fire Nation, and I can accept that you wanted to help me then, but why in the names of the dragons did you follow me to warn me? No one asked you to! That doesn’t make any sense!”

She frowned in confusion and looked at Uncle.

I shook my head. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you were here to save him. I’ll probably be in your debt forever. But giving someone food is different from leaving home to follow someone. Leaving home is nothing that one just does like this.” I would have never done it if I had had the choice. The palace was the only place where my mother’s memory was still around and now the only thing I had from her was my Blue Spirit mask.

La lowered her gaze. “You’re right. It was no easy decision. I was asking myself the whole day if I was going to follow you or stay with my family. But there was always the possibility that the soldiers would find you, because I hadn’t gone to find you, and I didn’t want that to happen. If there is a way to help someone, to prevent something bad from happening, then you just have to do it,” she said quietly.

All I could do was staring. Was she serious? Was she really just here out of compassion?

“But,” I started, but was interrupted.

“You might be an idiot for believing the Fire Lord is a good person, but you’re still just a teenager. You can still change. And I don’t want to be consumed by the hatred against the Fire Nation. I have seen what it does to people, and I won’t let that happen to me. Not again,” she added softly and I frowned.

“What happened?” I asked without thinking.

She frowned at me, gnawing on her lip, before sighing deeply. “After my mother died and my father brought my brother and me to the Fire Nation to show us that it is not the whole Fire Nation which is evil… I, erm… I heard someone talk about waterbenders and how sad it was that their last waterbender prisoner had just died a week ago, since he wanted to know how they would be like. His father had told him that waterbenders were... ah... more enjoyable in bed and now he would never find out.” Her voice became hoarse and she swallowed. “I almost killed that man. He was a visitor to one of my father’s friends, and I wasn’t even supposed to hear them talking, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold back at that time, and I was lashing out blindly with water. He fell down a balcony and broke several bones. He’ll never walk again.”

My mouth went slightly open, trying to process that this girl, one of the friendliest persons I’ve ever met had nearly killed someone.

But then again, it still might be my fault that her mother was dead. It could have been me, but I would only know if she’d tell me when exactly her mother had died.

Finally I nodded. “I understand,” I said hoarsely and quickly cleared my throat. “Anger is a powerful source which can overwhelm one very easily.”

La nodded and tried to smile, but she only shook her head. “Wow, after knowing this you’ll definitely never trust me.”

I hesitated. “Actually, that’s not true. I guess I understand you better now and that makes it easier to trust you.”

“Pardon?” She looked totally taken aback, and I had to fight a grin.

“You have done your part in acting out your anger and now you see that you don’t have to do this anymore. You’ve had enough. I can understand that, because my uncle feels the same way.” At that I looked at him and saw his stomach move up and down.

“You don’t?” La asked cautiously.

I frowned and shook my head. How could I? I’ve never been part of this war. “No. I spent my whole life in the Fire Nation until I was given my mission. The war never mattered a lot to me. It was simply how things were. We are trying to take over the world and due to our technological progress that has become mostly pretty easy.” I nodded to myself. “I’ve never questioned the fact that we are superior or that water-, earth- and air people are not as strong as we are. Now I know that this is not true, but I have never lost anything to the war. I’ve never been part of it. But I don’t think that I ever helped people to see that the Fire Nation are not only monsters.”

La’s mouth shaped into a frown, and I knew that she tried to understand me. Then she finished her food and got up, walking towards Uncle and settling beside him. I stayed where I was, watching her, and she smiled at me. I felt heat crawling into my cheeks, but tried to return the smile. I hadn’t smiled for… I didn’t know, but I hoped that I didn’t look creepy.

La bended water from her flask and moved it around Uncle’s shoulder, pressing her palms to him and closing her eyes. My eyes widened as I saw the water glow in a pale shade of blue.

How could the Fire Nation not respect these benders? They did things that we could never dream of.

Sighing contentedly La guided the water back into her flask and closed the lid. “He’s fine and stable. His chi is responding very cooperatively to the healing which is a really good thing. I guess he will wake up soon. Just tell him to not move the shoulder too much and that he will need to rest at least for two days again.”

“Tell him?” I asked, almost a hint of fear in my voice.

La’s smile became sad. “I’ve healed him enough. There isn’t anything I can do now, and he will get better without me, too.”

“You’re leaving,” I stated, keeping my voice calm and level.

Yesterday I had nearly been angry at her for showing up, but now… It was nice to talk to a person my age and to be open. I knew that Uncle would want me to talk to him, too, but he wouldn’t understand everything. And La was far more interesting than Uncle to learn about.

“Yes. I’ve been gone long enough. I warned you and I helped you.” She took a deep breath. “And now I will have to return to my family. My uncle is probably going to shove me into some noble’s arms the moment I’ll come back, so that I won’t be his problem anymore, and my brother would want to lock me into my room for ten years. Or he’ll complain about the fact that I didn’t ask him to come with me.” She paused. “I did consider it, since I’ve never been without him, but I didn’t think it would be wise.”

I nodded. “I’m glad you did come alone.”

“It appeared to be the best way.” She shrugged.

We were looking at each other for a few more seconds, and I was wondering if I would ever see this blue green gaze again.

Then she picked up her things and marched out into the sunlight.

I quickly got up and followed her, watching how she greeted her ostrich horse. Her hair had a reddish gleam in the sunlight and I saw some lighter strands of hair around her face. I’ve never seen such light hair. I approached her, without knowing why, but when I stood in front of her, I felt the urge to hug her, to hold her close.

Damn puberty!

La smiled. “Take care. Look after yourself and your uncle. And you should really try to go to Ba Sing Se.”

I didn’t want to go there, and I was sure that uncle didn’t want that either. Lu Ten had died there. I didn’t want to see the walls which had managed to stop the Dragon of the West.

But I nodded. “Have a safe journey. I hope your reunion with your family will be peaceful.”

La’s smile widened and she laughed softly. “That really is something to worry about, but they won’t hurt me or anything.”

“Thank you again. For everything. I still don’t deserve your kindness, La.”

Her expression softened and suddenly her hand reached up to clasp my left cheek. My eyes widened, but I didn’t pull back.

“You deserve it. I know.” Her thumb brushed over my skin, then her hand retreated to her side again. “And by the way, maybe you should start calling me by my full name. It’s Kilara.”

I almost grinned. I knew it! I knew that La was not her real name!

“Kilara,” I repeated, and she smiled, and then mounted the ostrich horse.

I stepped back, swallowing, regretting that I hadn’t found the courage to hug her. But I was also kind of glad, since that would have been awkward.

“Until next time.” A glint appeared in her gaze and her smile widened slightly. “Prince Zuko.” Then she flicked the reins, and the ostrich horse darted forward, away and out of my sight, leaving me completely thunderstruck.

* * *

_He cursed his sister for running away again. What the earthquake had she been thinking? And where the earthquake was she going?_

_He had thought first that Kira would go to find their father in the Fire Nation, but Onyx’s trace led southeast. What if she came across the Fire Nation soldiers from a few days ago? What if she was robbed or raped or killed?_

_Nanuk clenched his teeth and kept earthbending to race after his sister’s trace._

_He could see a small village in the semiarid plain and ran and bended even more. But when he came to the entrance of the village, many people seemed to await him with improvised weapons which were in fact instruments for farming._

_“What do you want here, earthbender?” a man with a pitchfork shouted._

_Nanuk panted heavily, but he pulled the painting out of his bag. He unrolled it and stepped towards the man with the pitchfork. “I’m looking for my sister. I’ve followed her trace and she seems to have been here. Have you seen her?”_

_The man frowned as he stared at the painting and looked over his shoulder at the other villagers._

_Suddenly muttering spread across the villagers, and the man looked back at him._

_“There was a young Water Tribe girl here three days ago and she looks like the girl on the painting. She said she was a refugee and going to Ba Sing Se,” he said._

_Nanuk felt anger running through his body and he wanted to crush something. Dammit! What was Kira’s problem? She couldn’t just run away because she didn’t want to marry someone! She pretended to run from the Fire Nation? What the earthquake?_

_Why hadn’t she talked to him about this? Why did she leave without telling him? Did he mean that little to her?_

_He snorted. “Where did she go?”_

_A young man suddenly stepped next to the older man and folded his arms. “Well, we could tell you, but there is something that I don’t understand.”_

_Nanuk narrowed his eyes. He really didn’t have time for this. The badgermoles knew what could happen to Kira!_

_“Why are you looking for her, if she is just a refugee? Are you a refugee, too? Because, honestly, you don’t look like one. You’re wearing too fine clothes.”_

_“So what?” Nanuk growled._

_The boy only narrowed his eyes at him. “I think your sister ran from you and your family. And if she decided to do that, she probably had a reason to. We won’t be the reason for you to be able to drag her back!”_

_Nanuk clenched his fists and nearly growled at the older boy. So fine, he was only fifteen years old, but he was a good fighter, and he so would get the information he needed. He took a deep breath to calm down._

_“My sister was fine with us. If you’re indicating what I think you do, then let me tell you that no one ever hurt her and that we all love her and that I am looking for her, because she could get herself hurt or killed or raped or imprisoned and dammit, just tell me, where she went!” He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to know where Kira was. He needed to know if she was fine, why she ran away and he needed her with him again. He needed her close, for she was his other half, and she never had been away from him for so long!_

_“Of course you’d say that,” the older boy said, and Nanuk saw how they all moved closer together._

_He became desperate. “Please! Okay, please just tell me where she went. I only want her to be safe. She’s only fifteen, and she went through your village alone and you let her go off alone? What people let a fifteen year old girl be by herself?” he asked angrily._

_The villagers didn’t seem to like the insult and started to shout unintelligible things._

_“The Earth Kingdom… children… fight!”_

_“Fifteen is old… alone… spoiled brat!”_

_Nanuk’s jaw clenched. “I don’t care and this is not my fault! But I won’t let my sister down! Just tell me, please!”_

_Some people seemed to want to tell him, but the older boy scowled at them and shook his head. “No way. She is going to be safe in Ba Sing Se. Safe from you and your family!”_

_Nanuk’s temper snapped. He growled and bent without thinking. He wanted to knock this ass to the ground, but before his rock made contact with the boy, he himself was hit by something and lost his consciousness._

* * *

**_Zuko_ **

I was tempted to shout after L… Kilara, but I kept quiet and watched her leave, until I couldn’t see her anymore.

Holy dragons, she had known who I was!

She had known!

How long had she known?

Had she known from the beginning? How did she find out? Why didn’t she tell me?

And more important: Why did she still help me?

I ran my hand through my hair, something I had started doing a few days ago. When I had been a child, I had done this very often when my hair hadn’t been tied up.

I shut my eyes and tried to control the storm of thoughts and feelings in my head.

Nothing seemed to make sense anymore! My father wanted me imprisoned, there was nothing I could do to gain his respect and love again. Azula had never really liked Uncle, but she had just tried to kill him!

The Avatar’s waterbending friend had offered her help to me and uncle, and I was reminded of how the Avatar had asked me if we could have been friends before the war.

And Kilara… she had helped me so much without wanting to have anything for it! She had helped me despite me being from the Fire Nation and a firebender and the fact that I had tried to steal from her family! She knew who I was and she still wanted to help me.

I pressed my palms to my temples and tried to shove every nice thing away that anyone who was not from the Fire Nation had ever done to or for me.

I needed to concentrate on something to clear my mind. Yeah, that would help. Firebending! I should totally practise that!

Taking a deep breath, I started going through an advanced kata, but I noticed that my movements weren’t perfect. My fire wasn’t strong enough.

I needed to be good, I needed to be better if I wanted to fight and win against Azula. Yesterday had been humiliating for me. It had been too easy for Azula to knock me out.

I worked my body and inner fire for hours, until I nearly couldn’t catch my breath anymore.

Suddenly black spots appeared in my vision, and I started to feel a little dizzy. I laid my hands on my knees and panted heavily.

Dammit, I needed water!

Swallowing I stumbled back into the hut and drank from my water flask. Fortunately I still had another one, and I had noticed more water in Uncle’s bag, too. Probably for tea only.

I sighed and sat down, staring at him. How long would he stay like this?

Now that he was here with me again, I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want him to leave.

I bent my knees to my chest and buried my face in my hands.

It had been a mistake to leave Uncle. Of course, I had been able to help Lee and I had learned about the deep hatred the Earth Kingdom held for my nation, but I hadn’t left to learn something. I had only left, because I had been annoyed with Uncle’s judging eyes, his hope making speeches and his hand on my shoulder all this time! He had adapted to our situation so easily, but I… I just couldn’t. Every part of me seemed to be screaming that this was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I had to be the heir to the throne, I had to be in the Fire Nation.

But Azula had nearly killed Uncle and he was… he meant… He was important to me, more than she was. So if my father was okay with Uncle dying, then… I just had to accustom to the life of a fugitive. I’d do anything to keep Uncle safe. He deserved it. After being stripped off his birth right, losing his wife and son. Uncle deserved so much more than just peace and calmness. He deserved to lead the life of a war hero. He might be a retired general, but the Dragon of the West, the firstborn of Fire Lord Azulon deserved better than this!

I grew angrier at Azula every second and I knew I should also be angry at father and somehow I was, but I wanted to suppress this anger.

I had never been angry at father, and I wouldn’t start that now.

I heard the rustling of clothes and looked up, seeing Uncle move.

I quickly stood up and let myself fall next to him. Was he going to wake up?

His forehead wrinkled and he groaned quietly.

I bit my lip and became worried. What was it? Was it just a dream or did he feel any pain?

Dammit, why couldn’t I be a water healer?

I kept staring at Uncle for a couple of minutes, until I stood up to get his teapot and camping cooker.

I searched for tea leaves, and when I sniffed at them I didn’t have any idea of what they were, but I hoped it was ginseng, since that was Uncle’s favourite.

He’d probably be delighted at getting some tea the moment he would wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might need to wait longer than a week for the next chapter. I always reread them and edit them, but I've got exams coming up and will have to see if I'll have enough time to read the next chapter. Til then!


	4. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kilara is on her way home, thinking about everything that happened and what it means, as something unexpected happens.  
> Zuko tries to deal with his pain, after lightning didn't struck him on the mountain top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry for this late update! My exams got me completely distracted!

**_Kilara_ **

****

My mind was racing with thoughts, images and voices.

I had seen and learned a lot on this journey, and somehow, I needed to process all of this. I had to make something out of it.

The thought of just going back home and continuing my life as it had been made me sick. I refused to let the things I had heard and seen not affect my life.

My will was stronger than ever and I knew that I would run away, if Uncle wouldn’t let me study. Studying wasn’t a simple dream or wish to me anymore, but it felt like a calling, like my destiny. I needed to study. And I would do anything for it.

I had just saved the Fire Lord’s brother’s life. I had helped the Fire Lord’s son and I knew that they weren’t evil. The world could be so much better, if they somehow gained the power and reign of their country.

Perhaps I had just done something essential, something important for the world’s fate.

But that wasn’t enough for me.

Now that I had seen that I could do something, I didn’t want to stop. Somehow I needed to find a way to be close to the ones on top. I needed a way to help the world. This way was for me to study politics, economics and history.

I smiled to myself, as I thought about the things I would learn, that what I was going to learn was going to help other people.

But a frown covered my face soon after. I would need to go to Ba Sing Se, and my family wouldn’t want me to go. I had just run away, so if I told them what I wanted, and they refused they could expect me to run away again, but this time they could prevent it!

Then maybe I had to be careful when I would tell them. I would not argue and I wouldn’t show them that my heart was in this. Then maybe they would believe that I would do as they wished. I would have to be logical and rational, stating facts. That’s what earth people like to hear, after all.

A wicked grin appeared on my face, and I felt somehow smug and prepared. Yes, I would prepare, for there was nothing in this world that I wanted more than to study and use that knowledge to help people.

My way back home was, except for an encounter with a sabre-tooth moose lion which attacked Onyx and me, but which I managed to wash down a river, highly unexciting. I didn’t meet any more travellers or had any encounters with soldiers.

Without any food or places where I could buy some, I had to be a bit creative about getting food. I managed to use my bending for catching fishes, but since it was spring there weren’t any fruits, nor nuts for me to find. So roasted fish was the only thing which I had and ate. Soon I was completely fed up with roasted fish, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. But it still was better than to starve.

On the third day, I recognised the plain in which the village with those hostile people had been. My stomach jumped in joy to finally get something else to eat than fish, but I was wary of those people. I couldn’t go there again, for I had told them I was a refugee. I had to have a very good explanation, why I had returned. Something they would believe.

Maybe I could just tell them that I had seen the Fire Nation princess on my way to Ba Sing Se, and I had got scared that she could try to attack the city, so I had returned, but I still didn’t know where to go.

Would anyone believe me that? If I put up a good act in which my fear was convincible, then maybe they would.

Oh, I just had to get some real food!

And Onyx, too. Well, he still had his feed, but I wanted him to have an apple or a carrot.

Sighing, I made my way to the village and pressed my knees to Onyx’s sides to make him run faster.

I already put on a scared expression and raced into the village.

A few people jumped out of my way or screamed fearfully or angrily at me.

I made Onyx stop, jumped down his back and pressed my hands to my knees, panting and shivering.

A crowd gathered around me, and I readied myself for my act.

“What are you doing here?” I heard a voice ask that was strangely familiar.

I looked up and saw the older boy from last time, who had almost attacked me. Oh, not him again! “I…” I licked my lips to gain some time.

He stepped closer to me, and his face showed a mixture of fear and urgency. “You should be far away from here, where you are safe! Why did you come back?”

I was completely caught off guard by his worried voice and cleared my throat. Again I tried to look afraid. “The Fire…” I swallowed. “The Fire Nation. I… I saw Princess Azula! They moved towards Ba Sing Se and I…” I wrapped my arms around myself and pressed for tears. “I think they want to attack the city! It’s not safe there!”

People started to murmur fearfully, some even screamed in anger.

“Those bastards! Why can’t they just leave us alone?”

“They have to take everything!”

“Those monsters! Someone has to stop them!”

The boy in front of me took one more step towards me, and I noticed that he had an artificial leg. I frowned at him, for I didn’t understand why he wasn’t acting in a hostile way towards me.

He swallowed. “You, erm… If you don’t know where to go, I’m sure you can stay here.”

I raised my eyebrows sceptically. What the hell was going on with him?

“Oh, suddenly I’m allowed to stay?” I couldn’t stop myself from saying this and I stemmed my hands on my hips, looking challengingly at him.

The old lady from last time walked to stand next to him. “Things have changed, and there is something that you need to see.”

The boy turned to her with wide eyes and a shocked face. “Grandma, no!”

“Shush! It is not on us to decide. After all, only she knows the truth.”

I folded my arms. “What is going on?”

Suddenly I got several looks of compassion and pity, and I felt highly bewildered.

“If you would follow me, dear,” the old lady said and turned to walk away. The crowd parted for her.

I looked around me and swallowed. Well…

The older boy made a hand gesture which meant to follow his grandmother.

Sighing I turned to Onyx, grabbed his reins and walked after the old lady. When I left the crowd, I turned to look at them and noticed that the boy was following me.

I tensed almost immediately and grabbed subconsciously for my water flask. Feeling its surface calmed and reassured me a bit. I was one damn good bender, Nanuk had said. If someone was going to attack me, I would be able to defend myself.

The old lady led me to the edge of the village where a short road led to a small building made of wood.

“In here,” she said, after she had stopped in front of the door, “is someone you have to see to help us decide what is to happen to him.”

My eyes widened in surprise and fear, and I understood. This small building was a prison.

But who would be in there? For a brief moment I feared it might be Prince Zuko, but that couldn’t be. He couldn’t have been faster than me with his uncle, and it wouldn’t make any sense for him to come back here.

I was even thinking about Jet, Smellerbee or Longshot, but they were heading towards Ba Sing Se. This small town was to further to the west, so they shouldn’t come through here.

I swallowed and tried to brace myself for who I was going to see. I nodded towards the old woman.

She then looked at her grandson who opened the door with a key. I put down my hat and held it on my side. It was completely dark inside, and I could only make out a small hallway with a chair and table, next to it four prison cells with only a bucket inside of them.

It reeked.

The old lady pointed to the closest cell, and I walked there cautiously, noticing a human body curled up on the floor.

I frowned and moved closer, until I bent down right in front of the bars. The person behind them was wearing fine clothes, multiple layers, and I noticed the fabric to be of a good quality.

I looked back at the boy and his grandma who evenly stared back, before I turned around, swallowing. “Erm… You, wake up!”

He didn’t move. I pulled out my dagger and banged it against the bars, which made him sit up with a yelp.

My eyes widened. “Nanuk!”

He still looked sleepy, but he scrambled to his feet, or at least tried to, since his legs were bound together, as were his arms behind his back. He managed to get up and jumped towards me. “Kira!” My brother pressed against the bars and I knew that if he weren’t constrained he’d hug me, but I was grabbed by the older boy from behind and pulled back.

“Don’t you come near her!”

Nanuk’s face was soon covered by a scowl, and he almost seemed to growl like a wolf bear.

I pulled my arm free and turned to the boy. He held his arms at his sides, his fists clenched.

“What do you think you’re doing? Why is my brother imprisoned in here?” I snapped at him and his grandmother.

“They think you left home, because we mistreated you,” Nanuk said darkly.

“What?” I stemmed my hands on my hips and shot them a glare.

“We know you’re not a refugee. We found identity papers with your brother, with which we could figure out that you are Kilara Huang.” The older boy folded his arms in front of his chest. “What reason would you have to leave home, if not for them mistreating and hurting you?”

My eyes widened all the more, and I looked back at my brother, who had never looked so angry before.

“I was not mistreated! My family would never do such horrible things!” I cried out in anger.

Grandmother and grandson looked at each other.

The old lady laid a hand on my arm. “Be honest, dear. Your brother cannot escape, and you could stay in our village where we would all protect you. There’s nothing you have to fear if you tell us the truth.” She smiled encouragingly at me.

I took a deep breath to calm down, but when I talked again, my voice was hard like steel. “I really appreciate your concern, but I have never ever been mistreated or hurt by my family. Not by my brother, father, uncle, mother or aunt. I am safe with them and I love them more than anything. So if you won’t release my brother, I’m going to free him with force.”

As they still hesitated, I quickly bent the water out of my flask and froze the lock to his cell. I dodged the boy’s arm who wanted to grab me and kicked powerfully at the lock, which crashed the lock and opened the door. With two precise water whips I cut through the ropes binding Nanuk. Once he was free, I didn’t waste one second and flung myself at him. I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight. He responded to my embrace and buried his face between my shoulder and neck.

When I drew back, I clasped his cheeks and raised my eyebrows. “Are you hurt? Do you have any bruises?”

Nanuk shook his head. “No. Well, he knocked me out, but that doesn’t even hurt…”

I turned to the older boy. “You knocked him out?!” I roared and resisted the urge to slap him with a water whip. 

His eyes widened, and Nanuk closed his fingers around my upper arm to hold me by his side.

“I only wanted to help you!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Because of your awful behaviour last time you thought that throwing my brother in a cell because of mere assumptions was making me appreciate your help?!”

At that he opened his mouth, but when nothing came out he turned around and left the prison as fast as he could.

I frowned at his behaviour, but decided not to think about it. Instead I turned to look at Nanuk again. “What are you even doing here?”

He narrowed his eyes, let my arm go and folded his arms. “What I am doing here? It’s me who should be asking you that question! I was following you! But why on earth did you have to leave?”

I stared at him for a few seconds and wondered if I should tell him. I had never kept any secrets from Nanuk. “I… I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

“What?” He grasped my shoulders. “Are you serious? Do you have any idea how worried we were? Uncle alarmed the sheriff, there are posters everywhere with your face, Aunt can’t stop crying since you left, and you don’t care about telling me why you had to inflict such pain on us?” His nostrils flared, but I sensed that he was sad and frightened under his anger.

I felt tears behind my eyes, and I swallowed, looking down at the floor. I tried to suppress my tears, for I didn’t like to show any emotions which made me look like a weak little girl, but the thought that I had hurt my family so much made it impossible.

The tears were running down my face, and I sniffed slightly, because I didn’t want Nanuk to notice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I was already on my way back. I… I…” How could I possibly make this up to him? I knew perfectly well how he felt. We had always been together since the day we were born. Nanuk was my best friend and I loved him more than anyone else. If he left me alone without any explanation… it would tear me apart.

I couldn’t stand the fact that I had hurt him so much, so I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest, while the tears were still falling.

“I’m so, so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry, Nanuk. I won’t do it ever again, I promise!” I rubbed my nose at his chest, inhaling his familiar scent, even if he reeked like a prison toilet. I continued to say words of apology and regret, but Nanuk shoved me back and laid his hands on my cheeks to wipe my tears away.

“Stop! You know I always have to cry too if you do,” he said with a hoarse voice and I could see tears glistening in his eyes.

I smiled a bit and felt his arms around me again.

“I’m just glad that you are fine and safe. I could never forgive myself if I let anything happen to you,” my brother murmured into my hair.

“You know I can handle myself,” I replied quietly.

“I know. But I can’t stop worrying.”

I smiled again and was happy to be reunited with my other half.

Many sisters and brothers were close to each other, but since Nanuk and I were twins, our bond was even stronger. We weren’t as close as identical twins, but having spent every day of my life with him certainly bound me more strongly to him than it would have with a normal older brother. I almost knew all the time how Nanuk felt, I could predict his thoughts or what he was going to say and I loved to cuddle with him. He only allowed it when he wasn’t in an ‘I’m too cool to cuddle with my sister’-mood and when we were alone. I knew it would embarrass him if people knew that we still cuddled at the age of fifteen. But I knew he liked it, too.

“Ahem.” The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted my soft and cuddly mood, and I leaned back to see who had been standing there.

The old lady, obviously. She had never left.

“I see now that you were right,” she addressed Nanuk. “Your love for your sister would always prevent you from doing such horrible things. Or from letting other people do it.”

Nanuk tensed again, and I knew that he still hated what they had accused him of.

“So why don’t you two come outside with me? I think we need to explain ourselves and it would be an honour to have you two as guests for dinner tonight. There will be roasted duck with pumpkin vegetables.”

Nanuk and my eyes widened immediately, and I felt my stomach growl. Oh yeah, no roasted fish anymore! And it had been ages since I had eaten a pumpkin! Living with Uncle we didn’t eat a lot of duck. Mostly we got rabbit goose, pheasant dear and quail boar, since my Uncle thought that big animals which weren’t domesticated were the healthiest.

I looked questioningly at Nanuk and saw how he fought between his pride and his stomach.

So, I decided for him. “We’d love to have dinner with you!”

The old lady inclined her head and smiled at us. “My name is Yin Jing by the way.”

I smiled and followed her back outside, where Nanuk blinked heavily into the sunlight. He grinned when he saw Onyx waiting for me and walked towards him. Onyx seemed to be happy to see my brother and enjoyed his affections.

Together we walked back to the main road where a large crowd awaited us. I could hear several gasps when they saw Nanuk.

Yin Jing stopped walking and raised a hand to silence them. “Nanuk Huang has been falsely accused of a severe crime by us. He had suffered in prison for almost two days and we are going to make this up to him, since we are honourable people. We know the difference between right and wrong and although our intentions were the best, namely to protect this young girl Kilara Huang, we have still done wrong. Nanuk and Kilara will stay with my family until tomorrow. Until then you will have time to make it up to Nanuk.”

Nanuk frowned. “No, you don’t have to…”

“Nonsense!” Yin Jing barked and shot him a glare. “We will not stand in your debt forever, young one! We have done wrong, and the spirits may destroy our village if we can’t make it up to you!”

Nanuk took a step back and I could tell that he was feeling a bit intimidated. “Alright.”

While we were making our way to Yin Jing’s home, the people reached their hands out to Nanuk, exclaiming words of apology and regret. Some even said that they had never considered him guilty, and Nanuk was taking that all in with an appreciating smile and he often nodded or said “Thank you!”, and I couldn’t help but be immensely proud of his demeanour.

Yin Jing ordered her grandson Renshu, who was sulking at the kitchen table, to prepare a bath for Nanuk. Renshu gazed at us and left without saying a word.

Nanuk and I were seated on cushions around the kitchen table, while Yin Jing was making us some tea.

“My dear,” she addressed me, “I’m really glad that you are fine. You are an intelligent young woman, and it warms my heart to see the love between siblings.” She turned around and smiled. “I had a little brother, and we were always fighting. But I still cared deeply for him, and I was there for him until he died two years ago.”

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” I replied and hoped that I would be there for Nanuk, too.

“Don’t be, dear. He simply fell asleep and never woke up again. He had a wonderful life, that’s for sure. I was never someone who would think or expect a brother to hurt his sister. It is just that,” she sighed, “my grandson met a girl a few years ago who was just going through this. He couldn’t help her then, but he’d become very wary of any strangers, especially men since then. He really only wanted to help.”

Suddenly I felt bad for shouting at him. Oh moon, that did explain a lot. But I couldn’t help but be curious of this girl. What had happened to her? Was she still with her horrible family?

Yin Jing set a tray with tea and yeast dumplings in front of us, and I stared dreamily at the dumplings. Finally something better to eat!

I still stayed calm and waited for Yin Jing to pour the tea into our cups. As she sat down and took the first sip, Nanuk and I followed. After that we both grabbed a dumpling and ate with gusto. I kept my face clean and totally did not munch, but I enjoyed the dumpling’s feeling in my mouth, its flavour on my tongue and that my stomach was getting fuller.

Yin Jing smiled at us. “I didn’t know that Aiguo Huang had two children. And after what I’ve heard it would not be like him to take a lover and have illegitimate children.”

Nanuk’s eyes widened and he coughed when the dumpling wouldn’t get down his throat. I took a sip from the tea to wash the food down.

“We are not Aiguo’s children. He is our Uncle, and our father is his elder brother Longwei,” I explained.

“Ah, I see.”

“You are right. It would not be like Uncle to take a woman without being married to her. He never had a… erm… girlfriend or anything like that. He’s only married to our Aunt now for five years and I can assure you that he has no children, legitimate or illegitimate. But how come that you know so much about him?”

Yin Jing smiled again. “That is a good question. You see, I left this place when I was very young. And very pregnant.”

Nanuk coughed again, and I fought against a grin, since I knew he hated anything that had to do with women things.

“My daughter’s father was a Fire Nation soldier, you know.”

Nanuk’s jaw dropped, and I swallowed. “Did… did he…?” Nanuk couldn’t get it out.

Yin Jing’s lips curved into a light smile. “No, he didn’t. Not every man with Fire Nation blood is a monster, you must know.”

Nanuk grinned sheepishly, since we knew that all too well.

And now I even knew that Fire Nation royals were not always monsters.

“Yeah, I know that, but you said he had been a soldier and soldiers, from all countries, are can be like dogs.”

Yin Jing nodded in understanding. “That is true. But Hiroki was not like them. We were deeply in love and it truly was love at first sight. But the Earth King had sent soldiers to drive the Fire Nation off, and they succeeded. So, when I found out that I was pregnant I made my way to the colonies. I wanted to search there or to, at least, find out where Hiroki could be. Despite my state I found a nice family who was willing to give me work. I became a nurse after I had my baby and later even a nanny. I looked after two boys: Longwei and Aiguo.”

Nanuk and I sat up straight immediately. “What? You were father’s nurse?”

Yin Jing smiled. “It appears so, yes. I only never heard that he had started a family. I always thought he would become a professor for archaeology,” she said, chuckling.

“Our mother was from the Northern Water Tribe,” Nanuk explained, while I drank some tea. “But she died last autumn.”

“Oh, dears, I am so sorry. No child should lose their mother so soon. Especially before you can blossom into a young lady or become a young man.”

“Thank you,” Nanuk said softly.

But wait a minute. There was something that didn’t add up for me.

“Yin Jing. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but if you were in love with a Fire Nation man and lived in a colony, you surely know that not all of them are bad. So why did you behave so hostile toward Prince Zuko when he was here?”

“What?” Nanuk gasped, his eyes nearly popping out, while he looked at me and Yin Jing. “Prince Zuko? The traitor who killed one of his own countrymen?”

I felt my whole body tense and asked myself angrily how I could have forgotten to ask Prince Zuko if he has really killed this Admiral.

“He was here?” Nanuk turned to me, laid his hands on my shoulders and shook me. “While you were here?”

“No.” I shook his hands of. “Yin Jing only told me about it, when I arrived here the first time, two days after the prince.”

Yin Jing frowned and stared at her hands. “That is indeed a good question, dear. And my reasons for that are simply that not all Fire Nation people might be evil, but the royals certainly are. It was them who brought all this destruction and war to the world. Without Fire Lord Sozin and his descendants this war would have never happened.”

She was right there. But who else would have ruled the Fire Nation instead? And what if they had wanted war, too? My father had taught Nanuk and me that the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes thought that the war was raging because the Fire Nation was full of monstrous, greedy, blood-thirsty, hungry excuses for humans. But Dad had also told us that the war originally began because Fire Lord Sozin had wished for more unity between the nations. He had wanted to offer the other nations all the good things from the Fire Nation if they became part of the Fire Nation and allowed Fire Nation people to live, work, cultivate their land, and use their mineral resources. This might have turned to the horrible reality we were living in, but what if someone else had made it even more horrible. Besides, Fire Lord Sozin must have got influenced by something in his life to get this idea. The fault didn’t lie in the line of the Fire Nation royals. “But you told me that the prince wanted to defend a child from the village,” I objected.

Yin Jing narrowed her eyes at me. “From the first time I saw you I knew that you highly disapproved of our actions. But we had our reasons. And that is that.”

“No, no, no, no, no. Okay, pause. Would now someone be kind enough to tell me what the prince of the Fire Nation had been doing here, after soldiers had searched our house and…” Nanuk stopped, staring at me and his mouth wide open.

Oh no, he couldn’t have figured it out!

“You left right after they left. You…”

Yes, I had followed him.

“Were you trying to find Prince Zuko?” Nanuk asked, his voice quiet and controlled.

I licked my lips. “I…”

Nanuk shook his head. “Kira, you know that wouldn’t have made a difference. They were not in our house, nor on the grounds. Uncle was safe, and the princess didn’t have one reason to hurt him. You didn’t need to go off by yourself trying to capture them!”

“That is not why I left,” I hissed angrily.

“Then tell me!”

“Uh… th-the bath is ready,” a voice from the hallway interrupted, and we all turned to look at Renshu.

“That is great!” Yin Jing stood up and walked to the door. “Now, Nanuk, come. You wouldn’t want your warm water to go cold, would you?”

Nanuk still glared at me and pouted a bit at the same time. “This is not over yet,” he growled, but left the room.

I sighed and leaned back on my elbows, when I noticed Renshu looking at me. “What?”

He stiffened and turned to the kitchen. “Nothing.” He got himself a cup and poured the tea from the table into it, before he sat down on my right.

“Erm… I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier. I understand now that you only tried to help.”

Renshu nodded. “Thanks. And I guess I should apologise for my behaviour the other day. I shouldn’t have seen you as a suspicious stranger, but as a normal girl.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s true. But you were right with not trusting me, since I am not a refugee.”

He chuckled softly with a deep voice, and I felt a shiver running down my spine. My body began to tingle, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I chose to ignore it. Well, I tried to, but it really wasn’t easy. I had never felt anything like this, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

My cheeks started to burn without any reason, while I was staring into Renshu’s emerald eyes which were so green like a conifer forest in spring.

I quickly averted my gaze and tried to fight the heat in my cheeks.

“Are you okay with staying here?” he suddenly asked.

“Yes. Totally. I’m really looking forward to dinner, since I didn’t eat anything but fish during the last two days.”

Renshu smiled and chuckled again.

I was shivering.

Dammit, what was that?

“So, I suppose you are not going to say why you left your home?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“No, I’m not,” I answered decisively and folded my arms.

Renshu nodded. “Well, I’m glad you have no reason to flee your family.”

“Mhm.” I swallowed and wondered if it would be okay to ask him a few questions. “What about your family? Where are they?”

Renshu stiffened and looked down at his hands. “Um, my mother died when I was born, and my father died in the Siege of Ba Sing Se. Since then, I have been with my grandparents and granduncle.”

“Oh. I’m really sorry,” I said softly.

Renshu shrugged. “It’s okay. I never knew my mother and my father wasn’t the best… uh… role model.”

I raised my eyebrows, as I saw Renshu blushing.

“I probably have a dozen or so half siblings.”

“Oh.” This topic was awkward. Really awkward. “How did you lose your leg?” I then changed it with the first thing that came to my mind, but this was probably a bad question, too.

His face darkened, but he still answered me. “I was recruited for the army when I was sixteen. And almost two years later while I was trying to save my unit I got hit with fire. My leg was burnt so much that I couldn’t use it, so it got amputated.” He shrugged and looked at me. “Uh… I was released honourably from the army then,” he quickly added.

“Wow,” I said. “Were you… you know, at the front? Fighting against the Fire Nation?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I got a lucky star then. Most of my comrades died in the explosions and…”

His face was contorted with pain and I knew that I had to change the subject again.

“Do you like living here?”

“Uh… It is okay. Better than with my dad. We were living in Ba Sing Se’s lower ring then. If you don’t know how to fight, you get robbed or killed or raped when you’re in the streets at night there.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to suppress a gasp.

Renshu shrugged. “My dad showed me how to fight, and I never went outside after sunset, but still… it’s way calmer here. The people all know each other in this town. Before those so called Earth Kingdom soldiers were here, everyone also trusted each other. But after they arrived and beat up the first people everyone was just minding their own business, thinking ‘Better them than me’.”

“Do you think it will change now again?”

“I hope so. The Fire Nation prince’s appearance was a shock to everyone, and I think it will be easier to stand together again.” He drank the last bit of his tea and gazed at me.

“Hm.” Maybe that was something good, after all.

We kept staring at each other, for no one seemed to know of anything to say, and these shivers began anew. But I couldn’t stop it, even if I did want to, my skin became super sensitive, I got goose bumps everywhere the air touched me, my heart beat faster, and my body became warmer.

Renshu’s dark green eyes were so warm and very different from all those light green eyes I had seen before. His face seemed to be completely neutral, emptied of all emotions, but his eyes seemed to burn. Some strands of his hair were covering his forehead, but most of his hair was pulled up in a knot and held in place by a broad green hairband which nearly covered the whole knot.

I noticed that he was swallowing, and then I heard footsteps approach.

Yin Jing walked into the room, a basket with herbs and vegetables in her arm. “So now, I ‘ve got everything I need for dinner. Renshu, come help me with the vegetables.”

Renshu stood up almost immediately, and I couldn’t fight the slight feeling of disappointment when he walked away.

Yin Jing came back to me to show me a room, in which she had put large cushions, several blankets and a large bowl full of water. “Why don’t you rest a bit, dear? You must be really exhausted. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

I smiled at her, thankfully to be given that opportunity.

After she left, I took off my jacket, pants and tunic, so that I was only in my undertunic and undergarments when I lied down to take a nap. My eyelids shut and I almost fell immediately asleep.

Dinner was great. The roasted duck tasted extraordinarily good, and Yin Jing knew a lot of stories to tell. Nanuk and I even talked a bit about ourselves, what we liked to do, what we wanted to do once we’d be adults.

“That is if your future husband allows you to study,” Nanuk interposed, and I shot glare daggers at him. “What?” He raised his hands. “I’m just saying. You won’t be able to do everything you want to, once you’re married.”

Yin Jing frowned. “But why marry? You’re only fifteen!”

“I can marry when I’ll turn sixteen, and our uncle is already looking for some potential future husbands, since our father is off studying,” I explained.

“Tut-tut. I’ll tell you that you should not marry when you are not ready. Especially no one who you don’t love with all your heart or who you don’t know well. Men sometimes seem nice and charming in the beginning, but after the marriage they can show their true face or simply change.” Yin Jing’s expression became very worried. “Please don’t make our previous fears come true.”

I smiled thankfully at her. “I won’t. I promise. And if my future husband should ever behave to me like that, I know perfectly well how to defend myself,” I stated confidently, but I didn’t miss Yin Jing’s sad smile which told me that there were lots of things I didn’t have any knowledge of.

After dinner I went outside to do some waterbending practice, since Yin Jing’s worried face didn’t leave my mind.

I was not helpless. I was a damn good waterbender, and I knew how to wield a dagger. Well, the only waterbender I could compare myself to was Mum, and she had only once fought another waterbender.

I took a few deep breaths, before I began to move through my forms. I didn’t have a lot of water with me, so my practice was limited to a small amount of water. But I managed to let it go further away from me than I ever had. And I still controlled it. I was really satisfied and led my water back into my water flask. There was not a lot of space behind the house, but enough to let me train close combat forms.

After a while I noticed the water in a body right behind me and stopped, turning around to see who had been watching me.

Renshu leaned on a wall with his arms folded and raised his eyebrows when I stemmed my hands on my hips.

“Why did you stop?” he asked with his deep velvety voice, which sent a shiver down my spine.

“Why were you watching?” I shot back.

“I asked first.”

I rolled my eyes. “I stopped because I noticed you watching.”

“Is there something wrong with me watching?”

“No. I just want to know why you were watching,” I stated and raised my chin a bit. I would certainly not show any weakness or fear in front of this… boy, who was older and who had muscular arms and broad shoulders and an angular face and slight beard stubbles. Oh moon, I needed to get a grip.

Renshu inclined his head. “I’ve never seen waterbending before, so I got curious. Your bending style is so fluent, so different from earth- and firebending. It looks beautiful.”

I blinked at him and suddenly felt embarrassed. No one had ever said that my bending looked beautiful. Certainly no one who affected me in such a confusing way.

After I stared at him for a few seconds he raised an eyebrow. “So, are you going to continue?”

“I, uh… actually I wanted to practise close combat fighting now.”

“You can do that?” I could hear in his voice that he was impressed which pleased me a lot.

“Yep. My parents always wanted my brother and me to be able to defend ourselves in every situation and every environment. But my mother trained us the most. My father is more a person of books and scrolls,” I explained and shrugged.

Renshu’s lips curved into a grin. “I can fight against you. It’s easier to practise with a partner. That is, if you want to.”

My cheeks flushed almost immediately, and I nodded.

As he walked towards me, I noticed again his artificial leg, because he was limping a bit.

I frowned. “Are you sure, you can do this? You shouldn’t stress your leg too much.”

His grin widened and a gleam entered his eyes. “It’s all healed and I trained enough to be able to fight now. After all, I knocked you brother out, didn’t I?”

I pretended to be unimpressed. “I wasn’t there, so you could tell me anything, and I would have no other choice but to belie… aaaaahhhh!” I quickly dodged and dove under his arm, as his fist tried to collide with my face.

“What the…? I wasn’t ready yet!” I exclaimed and glared at him, but had to block his arm and leg, as he again darted at me.

“The enemy will never wait, until you’re ready!” Renshu explained and quickened the pace of his movements.

Wow, he really could fight.

I really did everything that came into my mind, tried to use my smaller frame as an advantage and moved quickly around him. I tried to tire him, while I only dodged his attacks, but his older, taller and more muscular body was certainly an advantage for him. He was far stronger than me and his attacks were slowly getting to me.

Of course, I tried to attack him back, but he knew how to prevent an opening in his defence.

When I wanted to dodge him again, he obviously anticipated my movement, because he caught my wrist and spun me around, so that suddenly my back was at his chest. My other wrist was caught and although my arms hurt, because they were slightly twisted, my whole body tingled at his proximity.

“See, I told you I could fight,” he murmured, and I felt his hot breath in my hair.

I swallowed. “I believe you.”

Renshu chuckled deeply and my knees started to wobble. He slowly let go of my wrists, but I was still panting hard from the fight, and I stayed where I was. Seconds after he had released me, I could still feel his body heat in my back. Just to try it out I slowly leaned my back against him and relaxed a bit.

Suddenly I felt his hands on my hips, and he turned me around, so that I was facing him.

Oh moon, these were too many feelings, too many emotions running amok in my body. His face was close as he was looking down at me and our upper bodies nearly touched.

Nearly?

I leaned in, so that my breasts touched his chest, which caused him to gasp softly.

I didn’t really understand what was going on, since I had no experience with that, but I knew that it pleased me that my presence affected him as much as his did mine. I knew that what I was feeling would lead to kissing and touching and to all the other things men and women did. I knew that my body was impatient to learn about that, to be touched and to feel more shivers, but what did Renshu feel? Why was he acting towards me like that? Did he feel the same way I did?

He swallowed and licked his lips which were gleaming wetly. I stared at them and couldn’t help but wanting to feel them on my lips.

“Kira! Kira, it is time for bed! Where are you?” Nanuk shouted without being too loud.

I quickly stepped back and tried to catch my breath. Renshu blinked a few times and clenched and unclenched his hands.

That was already when Nanuk stepped outside. “Oh, there you are!” He immediately noticed Renshu and narrowed his eyes at him. “What were you two doing out here?”

“Sparring,” I answered. “Close combat.”

Nanuk raised his eyebrows. “With an artificial leg?”

Instead of answering Renshu ran towards Nanuk who was caught off guard, hooked a foot behind Nanuk’s leg, pressed his hand to my brother’s forehead and shoved him to the ground.

“Uff! Get off me!” Nanuk exclaimed, sounding really pissed.

I smiled apologetically at him, as Renshu let him go.

“I was not prepared, so that wasn’t fair!” my brother exclaimed.

I walked closer to them and laid a hand on his shoulder. “The enemy will not treat you fair either.”

Renshu grinned at me and I blushed because my body seemed to like his grin.

“Well, what did you say, Nanuk? Bed time? Right!” I pointed a finger in the direction of the door and walked in.

The two boys followed me and I stopped at my room for the night. “Good night.”  
“Ah, so you’re going to sleep in there?” Nanuk asked.

I nodded. “Yin Jing showed this room to me. Where are you going to sleep?”

“Down the hallway,” he said, nodding in that direction.

I gave him a hug and bowed to Renshu who bowed back, before I closed the door.

I removed my clothes again and settled for the night.

But sleep wouldn’t come. I was too distracted by everything. Of course, there was still this “Prince-Zuko-not-all-firebenders-are-evil-I-have-to-study-to-help-people”-thing, but my mind wanted to know how it would have been if I had kissed Renshu.

That would have been my first kiss!

From someone I barely knew, who had behaved like a douche first and who had imprisoned my brother.

Yeah.

Maybe I should reconsider this.

When every other noise in the house and the village had died down, I noticed a male body walking outside and stopping at my window.

I leapt up, grabbed my water flask, settled into a fighting stance, let the water hover around me and waited for the man to come in. He would get a very wet welcome from me.

When he climbed in, the first thing I saw was an artificial leg.

My heart beat faster, but this time not because of preparation to fight. I bended the water back, closed the lid over the flask and let it drop to the floor, when Renshu closed the window behind him.

I wrapped my arms around my middle. “What are you doing here?” I asked coldly.

He turned around to look at me. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Did you hope to find me asleep so I couldn’t defend myself?” I hissed at him.

“What? No! I didn’t… I would not ever do that!” His face contorted in anger.

“Then what do you want here?”

He sighed and looked over his shoulder, before looking at me. “I… I was hoping you weren’t asleep, because there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?” I really tried hard not to let my excitement show.

Renshu came closer, moving cautiously and looking like a predator, despite his artificial leg. I licked my lips.

He stopped in front of me and looked me in the eyes. “Because of earlier… I only wanted to know… Well, you’re leaving in a few hours and I know that I would always regret it if I didn’t do it.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He clasped my cheeks, and I felt my body tense up. “Can I… Can I kiss you?”

His presence was overwhelming. His body was so warm and his face with his lips was right there in front of me. Oh yes, I wanted him to kiss me.

“Yes,” I whispered, nodding.

Renshu’s lips were rough, but warm as he softly pressed them to mine.

I felt my knees wobble again and warm lightning bolts strike through my veins. He closed his eyes, and I did, too, wondering if that would change anything about the kiss. It didn’t really, but it was still nice, because all my senses were now only focused on his mouth.

Our lips moved against each other and I lifted my arms to lay my hands on his chest.

Renshu’s arms wrapped around my hips and pulled me close to his body, which made me gasp softly. His tongue touched my lips, demanding and gentle at the same time. Shivering slightly, I slowly opened my lips to his tongue and felt like being set on fire, as his tongue touched mine.

I felt his vocal cords vibrating and noticed him moaning slightly. He bent his head to kiss me more deeply, and I let my hands wander to his neck to hold his head in place as I pressed my body to his.

Moon, that was so much. It was almost too much, and it was slightly frightening that my body was even able to feel that much, that I could feel so many different things which excited and frightened me at the same time.

Although I was very curious about all this and my body wanted to feel him closer, I drew back to refill my lungs with air and to stop it here.

Renshu pressed his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. I swallowed and moved my hands to his chest again, where I tried to bring some distance between us.

He frowned. “Is everything okay? Did I do something that you didn’t like?”

I blushed slightly. “No, everything’s alright. Your kiss was… uh… well, I liked it very much.”

His lips curved into a gentle smile, and I felt my knees wobbling again, but fortunately he still had his hands on my hips.

Huh, the last person (except for Nanuk) who had been that close to me had been Zuko. _Prince_ Zuko. The _prince_. Not just Zuko and definitely not Lee.

I frowned in confusion, wondering why I was thinking of him now.

Slowly I took a step back. “Uh… thanks. But… I really should get some sleep now,” I murmured a bit awkwardly, while I pulled nervously at some strands of my hair.

Renshu’s eyes seemed to clear a bit and he nodded. “Right. Uh… see you at breakfast.”

“Yes,” I whispered and tried to smile reassuringly, since I didn’t want him to think that he had done anything wrong.

“Good night, Kilara,” he said in this deep, velvety tone that sent a shiver down my back. He took one step towards me again and kissed me on my cheek.

Then he turned and left the room through the window again.

I lifted a hand and touched my lips which had just been kissed for the first time.

I felt my cheeks heating up and wondered if any other kiss in the future would be as good as this one. Sadness settled into my heart when I remembered that I would not have the opportunity to really get to meet Renshu and I sighed before I made my way to the improvised bed.

**_Zuko_ **

I felt like shit.

Soaking wet, hurting, desperate, angry, sad and freezing shit.

Somehow I had stayed all night on this stupid mountain. Even though it had rained, the wind had been strong and there had been several lightning bolts. Not one coming at me, of course. That was just my kind of luck. Things I wanted to happen never happened. To me it was almost a physical law.

I tried not to think about anything as I descended the mountain slowly. The wind was harsh, but it was not raining anymore. The thunderstorm had passed, but not the one inside of me. I clenched my jaw, as the pain in me wanted to resurface. Pushing it back down as far as I could I reached the place where I had left the ostrich horse and was delighted to see that it was still there. 

The animal approached me cautiously and when it recognised me it pressed its beak against my cheek. 

My eyes widened slightly in surprise, since it had never showed me any affection or proof that it cared for me. Not that I couldn’t understand it, after all I had stolen it from a nice family. But I had always taken care of it.

Cautiously I raised my hand to touch its beak which it did allow. It even seemed as if it was nuzzling me.

Maybe I should give it a name. Frowning I bent down to look under the ostrich horse to see whether it was a boy or a girl. I’d never bothered before to know it. I couldn't see anything, so I thought it was a girl. 

She liked apples most, so maybe I could call her Apple? Or Hazel, since it was the colour of her eyes?

“So, are you more an Apple or a Hazel?” I asked softly and stroked her neck. Her feathers weren’t the least bit soft, which probably was the result of weeks of traveling without a bath.

But she only closed her eyes and leaned into my touch, which surprised me even more. “Or maybe I should call you Cuddly, since you obviously are the cuddly type,” I murmured.

The ostrich horse let out a soft neigh and I smiled. “So, it’s settled then, Cuddly.”

I continued to stroke her for a few minutes which perfectly well got my mind blank. I just didn’t want to think too much about my life now.

But I had to go back to Uncle.

Sighing, I mounted Cuddly and we rode back to the decayed hut where I had left Uncle.

He was sitting outside, drinking tea. Of course, he was.

I felt my stomach clench a bit from nervousness. Would he be angry with me because I had left him again?

When I was near enough to get down from Cuddly, he lifted his head and smiled at me. “Ah, nephew. It is good to see you are well.”

I wouldn’t call it that, but I nodded and walked towards him to sit in front of him.

“Would you like some tea? It’s jasmine, a very calming infusion,” he offered me with this spark in his eyes he always got when he was talking about tea.

“Uh… yes, thank you,” I muttered and watched him pouring tea into another cup.

I noticed that he was doing everything with his right arm. He didn’t even lift his left one to hold the cup while pouring the tea.

I took the cup from him and held it in my hands, staring at my lap.

There was nothing I could say and nothing I could do to end this stupid situation and that was frustrating me so much, I thought I might go crazy with anger.

Knowing Uncle, it was pretty obvious he was dying to ask me if I got hit by a lightning bolt and if I managed to redirect it. But since I was not burnt or anything, I thought he got his answer.

“There was no lightning,” I said quickly and quietly, hoping that we could end this topic and move on. I glanced up at Uncle, who was stroking his beard, nodding and humming a bit.

Oh, that was his old-man-got-to-think-gesture.

“I believe we might try another of the advanced moves,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at his left arm which looked as if it were limp. “You’re not doing anything,” I growled.

Uncle’s eyes got wide. “I beg your pardon?”

“I already told you yesterday to be careful with your arm, but I believed you when you said that there would be no problem with it, since it didn’t hurt at all. But now it does, so I was right, and you were wrong! You’ve got to rest and not move it too much,” I explained snapping and clenched my hand around the cup with the calming tea.

Uncle’s eyes were still wide, and he lifted an eyebrow at me.

I knew I hadn’t been very respectful, but I was still right. I shouldn’t have allowed him to train yesterday! Kilara had been right, but I had trusted Uncle’s judgment more than that of a water healer.

“Very well. I agree with you, nephew,” Uncle finally said resignedly. “That was not a wise decision, but I believed that the training was immensely important for you.”

“Well, it is, but it’s not worth you being in pain,” I shot back and was taken aback by Uncle’s chuckle.

“Oh Nephew, be careful. One could think you actually cared for this old man here,” he said with a wide grin.

I set my tea pot aside and stood up. “You are my uncle, after all. And now please excuse me, I can’t afford to waste my time drinking tea or listening to you mocking me. I’m going to pack our things. We’ve been here long enough, and we’re going to leave before noon.”

While I was walking to the hut, I could still hear him chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might have angered or annoyed some people, because Kira shows interest in a boy who is not Zuko. I would wish for things to be easier and faster, too. That when two people meet, they would know immediately that they belong together and they could just be together, but this is not how life works.   
> I decided to make this fic as realistic as it can be. With this I mean that people don’t just meet the love of their lives and everything is great and perfect, but they make mistakes and fall in love with other people before they fall in love with their love of their lives. And a couple fights and sometimes they hate each other or don’t trust each other, but the important thing is that they don’t stop loving each other. I try to write about Zuko and Kira in that way without changing canon.   
> The Avatar The Last Airbender world might kind of be set in the past, but there already are a lot of modern influences and progress is shown in the series and the comics, so I think it perfectly logical that there are already modern understandings of love and relationships in ATLA.   
> Furthermore, Zuko will have Jin and Mai, so I thought that Kira should gather some experience, too.   
> Last thing, to avoid confusion, but I do think that you all are observant enough to get it: Kira’s full name is Kilara, but her family and friends call her Kira and since I invented her, I thought I might have that privilege, too.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was the first chapter. I will probably upload one each week until I run out of them, and you will only get them, once I finished writing them.  
> So, you should know that this story is for Zutarians who can stomach Kataang as married and true to each other, but who don't want Mai to be Izumi's mother. This can also be for Maiko fans, who are open to stories about Zuko and an OC. This fic is in general just for all Zuko fans who think that he deserves the best future and the best family (and who think that Mai would be miserable living in the palace). This fic is also for ATLA fans in general, because there will be hilarious, funny, and cute moments with the gaang.  
> I'm still trying to figure out ao3, so I'll probably make a lot of mistakes at the beginning. But I will figure things out!:) Til next time!


End file.
